


The Favored Son(s)

by mutantleech



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Crusade!Era Joe is not happy about any of this, Crusade!Era Nicky and Joe meet Current!Day Nicky and Joe, Forgiveness, Guilt, He's kind of a dick for a lot of it, Joe does not like his past self, M/M, Self-Growth, Sorta abusive elements for a bit, Time Travel, but all ends well and fluffy, it's mutual
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:27:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 24,215
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28183143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutantleech/pseuds/mutantleech
Summary: Crusade!Era Nicky and Joe are transported into the 21st century, and they meet their modern day counterparts.Yusuf struggles with the reality that his older self grew up to marry not only a man, but one of the invaders that killed his people.Joe can't stand how much of an asshole his past self is, and gets to be protective and coo over twice as many Nicolos.Nicky has the patience of an absolute saint.And after two years travelling through the deserts with a man who won't speak to him, Nicolo is a quiet, shadow of a person.
Relationships: Joe | Yusuf Al-Kaysani/Nicky | Nicolò di Genova
Comments: 145
Kudos: 623





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all!  
> This all started as mindless musings on tumblr, but here we are.
> 
> Some important things to note!
> 
> -I care way more about drama than I do about historical accuracy. I did research for this fic, but also chose to selectively ignore things when it didn't suit my angst train.  
> -This story is told 90% from Yusuf and Joe's perspective. Things (incl. Nicky/Nicolo) will be skewed to how they see them. If you don't like reading Angry!Yusuf, this is not the story for you.  
> -Lots of medieval slurs and other not-nice things. Abusive dynamics if you squint (just at first, but it's hard to judge things in a war-torn 12th century through the lens of today, so yeah.)  
> -I don't speak anything. Google translate did all the things. Sorry.  
> -Also, no beta. Sorry again lol.

Joe's sat on the floor, his bottom lip caught between his teeth as he meticulously disassembles Nicky's sniper rifle. It's been a few months since they last cleaned it properly and Joe knows that if he doesn't do it, Nicky won't either.

They had arrived at their property in Malta only a few days ago after a very boring mission that hadn't needed all of them. Joe has his suspicions that it was Quynh trying to slowly ease Andy into early retirement – well, maybe _early_ isn’t the right word. 

Nicky had been the one to suggest that the team take a break – not from seeing each other as family, but from going on missions. It's what Andy had wanted anyway, all those years ago, and maybe it was time to give her a taste of it. Also, all of them needed a goddamn vacation.

Joe had shipped Nicky off to the store just after sunset, hoping he would stop _distracting_ him long enough to get the tedious rifle-cleaning out of the way. So it surprises him when, not twenty minutes after Nicky had gone, he hears him bumping around in their kitchen.

"That was the quickest grocery run you've ever done, habibi," he says, angling his head towards the sound. He should have started cleaning the rifle the second Nicky had left. Now, how is he going to ignore him long enough to do the task as thoroughly as he had intended?

He hears steps coming from the kitchen and looks up when he hears them stop at the doorway.

"Did you find the ripe tomatoes this ti-"

That is not Nicky.

That’s all that registers, and his body is moving before his mind can catch up with it. He lunges for the side table, yanks the drawer open, and pulls out a handgun, before rolling to the side of the couch and aiming it at the two men standing in his living room.

One of the men is stepping closer. He doesn't look armed, and he-

Wait. What?

Joe is- he's staring at _himself_.

The beard, the eyes, the face- it's like looking in a mirror. He straightens his gun hand because, in his shock, it had fallen to his side. It occurs to him that, if the person he's looking at is himself, then the one behind him must be-

 _And it is_. It isn't as obvious because he looks _different_. He has long hair, and a thick beard, and clothes that are hanging off his thin frame, but that's _Nicolò_.

Joe closes his eyes and shakes his head. Surely, when he opens them again, the hallucinations will be gone. Surely. 

He opens his eyes. They're still there.

"Who- what are you?" Not-Joe asks in ancient Arabic.

Ancient?

It registers late, but it does register that these newcomers are wearing tunics that Joe hasn't seen in at least eight hundred years, if not longer. These aren't just himself and Nicky. These are himself and Nicky as they had looked in the 12th century.

"You're in _my_ house. Who are _you_?" Joe says, but even as he's speaking, he's already taking stock of his own body. Has he been drugged? He can't smell anything in the air, but they've been gassed with odorless tranquilizers before; it's way more likely than… whatever this is.

Next to Not-Joe, Not-Nicky speaks; it's quiet and in Ligurian and Joe thinks he's talking to himself. "What is this place?"

A dream, Joe thinks. What he actually says, in Ligurian, is, "Your future. Unless you're not real and I'm talking to a wall."

Not-Joe clears his throat. "I am Yusuf – but seeing as I'm staring at myself, you already know that," he, _Yusuf_ , says, answering the previous question and ignoring the Ligurian exchange.

Joe switches back to Arabic, "How did you get here?"

Yusuf doesn't answer, he's looking at something to the left side of the room. When he makes a beeline for it, Joe turns his attention back to Not-Nicky.

"How did you get here?" he repeats in Ligurian.

Not-Nicky is frowning, looking very much like he's deep in thought. "I don't- we were there and then we were here, I don't know." He shakes his head. "You speak my language."

Joe opens his mouth to reply, but Yusuf has come back with a photo frame in his hands.

"He is here as well," His tone is accusing as he shows Joe a picture of himself and Nicky. In the picture, Joe is hugging Nicky from behind and is pressing a kiss to his smiling cheek. It's a selfie from over a decade ago, back when they first learned what selfies were.

"Of course he is. Where else would he be?"

"Seeing as I have been attempting to return him to his own people, I had hoped he'd be back to whatever hellhole he crawled out of."

Joe arches an eyebrow. "What year are you from?"

"494."

Ah, Gregorian 1101, Joe thinks. Well, that explains that. He can't help finding it amusing, though. "Wait until you realize you married him," he says and then takes the photo so he can put it safely back in its place.

He hears something like a choking sound behind him and huffs a laugh. He can barely remember being that person, but to even think that there was ever a time where he hadn't loved Nicolò – what a ridiculous notion.

"You must be my vision of Hell," Yusuf says, and his words sound like they've been pronounced through gritted teeth.

Joe smiles, eyes crinkling. "You won't be going to hell for a very long time."

"I won't be going to hell at all. You, on the other hand."

Joe huffs, still amused. "I asked Nicolò how you got here, he doesn't know anything-"

"You know my name," Not-Nicky, Nicolò interjects, still in Ligurian. If they're from 1101, he can't speak Arabic yet, which means he has no idea what Joe and Yusuf are talking about.

Joe turns to him, and he can feel the fondness tugging at his chest. "Of course I do, hayati."

Yusuf huffs and sneers at him.

"Something the matter?"

But Yusuf doesn't answer, because the sound of a door opening makes all of them stare towards the kitchen in unison.

"Joe? You downstairs?" Nicky calls out in the Ligurian-Arabic-Greek mish-mash dialect that only the two of them speak.

"We have guests," he yells back.

They hear the crinkling of groceries being taken out of their bags, footsteps, and then Nicky appears at the doorway with a curious look on his face. He had probably assumed the guests were any combination of their three sisters. When he realizes what he's looking at, he freezes.

"Who are-" he looks at Joe, mouth open and brows furrowed. "How-? What are these?"

Joe shrugs. "Your guess is as good as mine."

"Joe, these are- how-?" he walks over to Nicolò and stands way too close to him, inspecting him like one would a display mannequin.

"I think you're making him uncomfortable, my heart."

Nicky stares at Nicolò, then Yusuf, before walking over to Joe. "When did they appear?"

Joe shrugs again. "Ten minutes ago?"

"They look real."

"Unless we're drugged, I think they are. That one's got a mouth on him." He nods his head towards Yusuf, who tenses.

"What are you saying to that infidel?" Yusuf bites out.

Nicky's eyebrows rise, and Joe turns to look at his younger self. "I don't appreciate that language."

"I don't care what you appreciate." he snarls.

He looks around, eyeing the house, the couches, the pictures and paintings on the wall. When he looks back at Joe, he looks just as angry. "Whatever nightmare this is- I couldn't have conjured a worse fate for myself. Lying with an invader _pig_." He huffs. "I'd preferred to have died on the walls of Jerusalem."

"You'll learn soon enough that fate doesn't concern herself with what you prefer."

The sneer on Yusuf's face makes it clear what he thinks of that. He looks at Nicky, eyes him up and down and his sneer grows more pronounced. "Praise be that our father can't see this. He would spit at your feet, much as you've done to our brothers' graves."

"I'm not dignifying that with an answer. If you think I will reason with you-"

"Reason with me? You can't even speak past your shame. Would you look our mother in the eyes? If she knew you had taken to bed one of the men who killed her sons?" He looks Joe up and down, this time. "Spreading your legs like a woman to a filthy infidel- I hope she thinks you're dead."

To his right, Nicky closes his eyes and turns his head away. Joe knows he's holding his own retorts back.

Slowly, Joe walks over to Yusuf and only stops when they're centimeters away from each other. "That you would look at us and have nothing to spew but venom… I feel nothing but pity for you, that you do not yet know the light of Nicolò's love. But you do not stand in my house and insult my husband. So, I would suggest holding your tongue while it's still attached to your body."

" _Husband_." Yusuf sneers. "You don't scare me."

Joe steps closer. "All that tells me is that you're a fool. Now, you either behave like the guest that you are, and we figure out how to send you back, or there's the door." He points to the kitchen.

It's nighttime, and the cicadas are chirping outside, and there's no body of water for kilometers around their property.

Yusuf huffs. "Easy choice." And then he pushes past Joe and heads for the kitchen. They can all hear the backdoor slam.

\--

It lasts all of three days.

Nicky keeps tabs on him through the surveillance cameras set up around their house. 

Yusuf doesn’t do much aside from exploring the perimeter – searching for water, Nicky guesses. He does find their pear tree, but it's not in season, and there are only two unripe pears for him to eat.

"Tell me I'm not such a stubborn mule anymore," Joe says, bumping their shoulders and then resting his face on the crook of Nicky's neck. Nicky hadn't known he'd been standing there.

"You ask me to lie to you, my love?"

Joe huffs out a laugh.

After a moment of enjoyable silence, Nicky turns around to look at him. "Do you want to go fetch him?"

"No."

Nicky sighs and rubs at his temples. "If he reaches the road, he could get hit by a car."

"Maybe it'll knock some sense into him."

" _Yusuf_."

Joe shakes his head. "He'll come back," he says. "I always did."

And it's lunch later that day; they're gathered at the kitchen table when the back door opens and a haggard Yusuf walks through it. There are bags under his eyes, his hair is a mess of curls around his face, and his lips are chapped. He's not looking at any of them.

Nicky sees Joe opening his mouth and he places a hand on his arm. _Not now_ , he doesn't say.

Nicolò is watching the three of them without moving. His eyes keep flickering between Joe and Yusuf and then to Nicky and back again, his fork left forgotten on his plate.

Nicky stands up, heads to the cupboards, and grabs a glass. He fills it with cold water from the tap and places it on the counter, near where Yusuf is standing.

"You're still filth," Yusuf says, but it's so low that Nicky can barely hear him. And it's said quickly enough that, if you didn't speak the language, you could have mistaken it for a short phrase like _thank you_.

Ah.

Nicky leans in, looks at him, and says, "You're welcome," in his flawless, unaccented Arabic.

Then, he walks back to the sink and opens the tap a couple of times. "It works like this."

He can see Yusuf gritting his teeth together, his jaw tight and his nostrils flaring. But he ignores him, walks back to the table, and sits down to resume his lunch.

They hear the near choking sounds that Yusuf makes as he downs glass after glass of water. Joe ignores it entirely and continues eating, but Nicolò is looking up, his brows furrowed and hand gripping his fork tightly.

When Yusuf's done, he stands there in the kitchen, the front of his tunic wet from his desperate drinking. Nicky wonders if he's going to leave again. Maybe he'll sneak into the kitchen at night like a stubborn raccoon, but no, he doesn't move.

"You are welcome to the food if you want any," Nicky says, gesturing to the empty seat on Joe's right.

It takes a while for him to move, but he does. Except that, when he's nearing the table, Joe puts a hand on the back of the empty chair and speaks up without glancing back at him. "Go wash first. I can smell you."

Nicky closes his eyes and lets out a breath. _Dio, dammi la pazienza_. " _Joe_."

But he can read the expression of cool calm on Joe's face, and he knows this isn't a battle worth picking.

"Then go show him," Nicky says in their dialect, nodding towards the stairs.

"I'm eating."

" _Joe_."

Joe sighs in annoyance but gets up anyway. "Fine. Come," he says in Arabic. "Troublesome child," he murmurs under his breath, back in their dialect.

Still stiff and scowling, Yusuf follows.

\--

That night, Yusuf joins them at the table. He's wearing Joe's clothes and it's uncanny how identical they look, aside from Yusuf's longer hair.

Nicolò and Nicky don’t look alike as much. They don’t have the same build, as Nicolò's way too thin, and his beard and long hair hide a lot of their identical facial features.

But Yusuf and Joe? It’s like looking at twins. So, Nicky sits across from two copies of his husband and eats, trying to ignore how bizarre it all is.

At one point, he nods to Yusuf and says, "Can you pass me the bread?"

Yusuf looks at him for longer than the question merits, then reaches into the basket with his left hand and offers one of the dinner rolls to him. Nicky hears the huff of annoyance – anger – that Joe lets out at his side. But he doesn’t want dinner to turn into a blood bath, so he places a hand over Joe's thigh and squeezes softly.

He only breaks eye contact with Yusuf to stare at his hand and then back at his eyes.

It's a tense few seconds, but eventually, Yusuf places the dinner roll on his own plate, reaches into the basket with his right hand, and extends the bread to him.

Nicky takes it and sets it next to his soup bowl. "Thank you," he says and continues eating without saying another word.

\--

"And how are we supposed to go back, then? If your _technology_ can't do it?"

Yusuf is pacing in the living room, wound as tightly as he has been since he first laid eyes on them.

"If we knew how, we would have done it already," Joe says. He's been reading reports from Copley for the past eight hours and he's tired. "We don't want you here, either."

Nicky puts down his own report, ignores the needling, and shakes his head. "All these tell us is that time travel is unheard of. It's been a week, now. If this was caused by some phenomenon, Copley says the circumstances would need to be recreated for it to send you back."

"That could mean anything," Joe says, burying his face in his hand.

Yusuf's mouth tightens into a line. "Great." He stops with his pacing and then stomps out towards the kitchen. He's probably escaping to the back porch, Nicky thinks.

Once he's gone, Nicolò sits up from where he's been curled up on the couch and asks, "I'm assuming nothing changed from the last letters you got from your friend?"

"Unfortunately, not."

That is part of their dilemma, currently. Yusuf speaks Arabic, Nicolò speaks Ligurian, and no matter which Nicky and Joe pick, it means one of their time-travelers will always be standing at the sidelines, waiting. More often than not, it's Yusuf. If only because he mostly keeps to himself and refuses to interact with the two _Franks_ and the _traitor_.

After a while of tense silence, Nicolò speaks again, "I don't mind it here much."

Joe smiles at him, eyes crinkling. "You don't miss the bathhouses and the wet markets?"

Nicolò gives him a small smile in return but looks away. "Haven't seen either in a very long time."

Nicky frowns. "When are you from, exactly?"

"When?"

"Where were you, before you got pulled into our time?"

Nicolò pulls his knees up and shrugs. "I don’t know. We left Jerusalem, over a year ago. Two, maybe? The plan is to find passage to Constantinople, but we haven't gotten very far. He- we don't talk much."

Joe huffs and Nicky has to agree. That’s an understatement.

"Yusuf said they're from 1101," Joe tells him.

Nicky hums. "You won't reach Constantinople for another year, then."

He thinks he sees Nicolò shudder at the news.

\--

Even in his uncaffeinated, half-asleep state, Joe catches the exchange between them when he enters the kitchen at seven in the morning.

Nicolò is standing by the counter and Yusuf is fiddling with something, his back turned to him.

"Tea, have? Give, please?" Nicolò says.

And that petty, idiot of a man turns around teapot in hand, and proceeds to make a show out of pouring every last drop into his own cup. It almost overflows, but he's too busy keeping eye contact with Nicolò to care.

He then puts the pot back on the counter, grabs his cup, and walks out of the kitchen and onto the back porch.

The sight of Nicolò holding his own empty cup awakens Joe like no coffee could. He walks to the stove with purpose and proceeds to put the kettle on. "Here, I'll make you the best cup of tea you've ever had in your life."

Nicolò smiles, looking down at his cup, but then shakes his head. "It's ok. Nicky showed me how to work the stove."

Joe hums but continues making the cup of tea, anyway.

Afterward, when Nicolò is curled up on the couch with a blanket on his lap and a mug of steaming, rich black tea with honey, Joe heads to the back porch to deal with the second part of his problem.

"When I told you to be courteous to Nicolò, I meant to both of them."

Yusuf had dragged Joe's favorite armchair to the edge of the porch and is sat there, looking out into the field. He doesn’t look up at Joe's voice. "You haven't heard me say a thing to him, that's plenty courteous."

Joe regrets not having drunk his coffee before coming to confront his younger self.

"Would it be that much of a hardship to brew enough tea for two?"

Yusuf snaps his head to look at him. "Sure. Why should I not brew his tea for him? Shall I draw him a bath as well, then? Sharpen his sword? Get him well-fed and well-rested. Maybe I'll bring my people to him, this time, lest he exert himself with hunting them down."

Joe sighs, and yeah, it is too early for this. He rubs at his eyes and feels a tension headache coming on. "It's just tea, Yusuf," he says and goes back inside.

\--

Is not _just tea_.

It's the fact that he has to watch them play house with their little farce of a family. Every day, Joe will cook them breakfast, cooing and awing at Nicolò in that ugly tongue of his. They don’t speak Arabic in the house often enough for Yusuf to care what they're saying.

And Nicolò? Nicolò preens under Joe's attention. And why wouldn't he? Being waited on hand and foot like he's a king. He lifts his head every time Joe enters the room, follows him around like a dog, going out of his way to please him. Yusuf hasn't seen Nicolò like this since they left Jerusalem – not tiptoeing around, not shifting his gaze away when someone speaks, not hiding his pale face in fear of others seeing it.

It's unnerving.

It's been more than two weeks since they landed in this nightmare of a 'future', and they're no closer to finding an answer than they were before. Yusuf is still convinced this isn't the future at all. It can't be. Or at least, it's not _his_ future. Because Nicky and Joe are shameless in how they stand near each other, how they touch each other, how they call each other pet names in Yusuf's tongue. Whoever those men are, whoever Joe is, it's not him. It never will be.

But his mind couldn't have conjured up mobile phones – devices where you can see a person who's thousands of kilometers away. Or tee-vees, that contain windows into other worlds. Or even bathrooms? In his wildest musings about innovations, he could never have imagined any of it. So it has to be the future, because what else could it be?

So he learns to tolerate it all in silence because there's not much else he can do. When someone does speak Arabic, it's usually Nicky, addressing him. But Nicky doesn't treat him the way Joe treats Nicolò. Of course, not. For that, Yusuf would need to dance to their tune, pretend this façade is normal, and pretend he doesn’t see the blood on Nicolò, Nicky's, hand.

If what it takes to stand in his honor is being the odd man out in this house, Yusuf will do so proudly.

But it’s hard to not feel anger when his patience is constantly being tried. Because, much as he tries to keep to himself, the way Nicolò acts around him fills him with rage. Yusuf hadn't noticed it before, but now that he has something to contrast it to, it becomes obvious. The second that Joe and Nicky leave the room, the second that Yusuf and Nicolò retire to their beds, Nicolò reverts to the person Yusuf is used to. His shoulders hunch in on himself, and he takes the long ways to avoid crossing Yusuf's path, and he doesn't look him in the eye.

One time, when they're in the kitchen alone because Joe and Nicky are off sparring in the backyard, it's one thing too many. Because Yusuf reaches past him to open the fridge, but he's way closer than they usually stand to each other, and Nicolò _flinches_.

Yusuf feels his blood boil.

He slams the door of the fridge with such force that he hears bottles crackling inside. He turns around, his jaw clenching, and the hand that isn't holding the milk balls into a fist.

"Stop that!" he spits out through his teeth. "Stop trying to make me feel sorry for you! I don't feel sorry for you, you fucking Frank!"

But Nicolò can't understand him, can he? He just stands there looking at him with those massive pale eyes. No matter how many times Yusuf's yelled at him in the past, none of it meant anything. Nicolò has nothing to say for his sins. He hasn't even apologized. Not once.

Yusuf huffs, slams the carton of milk onto the counter, and storms off. When he reaches their bedroom, he slams that door as well.

\--

"Have you checked in on the children?" Joe asks as he towels his hair dry.

It startles a laugh out of Nicky, who's under the covers with a book.

"Is that what we are now, parents?"

Joe is smiling, but he tips his head to the side. "I do feel fatherly towards them. Don't you?"

Nicky hums. "It's hard to watch them make the same mistakes we did."

"You mean, watching Yusuf make the same mistakes I did."

"I thought parents weren't allowed to have a favored son."

Joe rolls his eyes. "When one of them is petty and childish, it's hard not to."

Nicky sighs and rubs at the bridge of his nose. "No, I haven't checked in on them." He looks Joe up and down, looks at the door, and then back. "Are we having sex before dinner? Because if not, I'd really appreciate it if you put some clothes on."

Joe grins at him, drapes his towel on the doorknob, and lunges to join him on their bed.

\--

Another slammed door, and Joe is starting to really resent fatherhood.

He's just had one of his countless, daily screaming matches with Yusuf. Well, less of a screaming match and more of Joe standing there while Yusuf dumps his anger out on him, yelling in his ancient Arabic until his voice gets hoarse.

He lets out a deep breath, rubs at his eyes, and plops himself down on one of the armchairs. It's becoming unbearable to share a house with him. And sometimes, Joe just wants to-

"Are you ok?"

The voice startles him, and he whips his head up toward it.

Nicolò is standing at the entryway to the living room, holding onto the doorframe as if he's uncertain if he should even come in. He always looks like that, tentative, hunched in, and it tugs at Joe's heart.

Joe tries to relax his posture and gives him a small smile. "Yeah, it's alright. Just…" he gestures towards the stairs where Yusuf had just stomped his way back to his room.

He must have succeeded in appearing friendly because Nicolò slowly makes his way in and takes a seat on the couch across from him. He sits with both his feet on the floor and his hands on his lap, a posture that can't be mistaken for relaxed.

There's a moment where the silence stretches too long, but eventually, Nicolò speaks again.

"He angers you," he says, quietly.

Joe sighs. Part of him just wants to wrap this Nicolò up in a bubble and keep him away from all the fighting and yelling of his counterpart. "He's a difficult person to deal with. He's said many things to me since he's arrived. None of them have been good."

Nicolò eyes him, looks down at his own hands. "About your Nicolò."

"To speak ill of Nicky is to speak ill of me," Joe says. " _And_ I don't like how he treats you."

That gets Nicolò to look away and to scoot back on the couch so that he's leaning on the armrest, his knees up in front of him. "We don't have a good relationship."

Joe huffs, but he's used to Nicolò's understatements. "I gathered that much, yeah."

Nicolò shrugs. "I hated him too, at first. Him and his people. I don't fault him for his hostility."

"Hated? You don't, anymore?

That earns him a small, barely-there smile. It's so similar to Nicky's that Joe's heart skips a beat, unable to contain its fondness.

"It changed, slowly." He lets out a small breath. "When we walked through the outskirts of the ruined cities, his people, they shared with us – with him – what little they had to spare. It didn't take long for me to realize I was in the wrong."

Joe hums.

"It's- odd. To watch you and your Nicolò. Your forgiveness…"

"Things aren't as black and white as you think." A pause. "And even if they were, he's apologized more times than I care to count."

Something must resonate with Nicolò because he goes quiet after that. Joe almost thinks the conversation is over, but after a long couple of minutes Nicolò speaks again, "How do you ask forgiveness of a man who doesn’t speak your tongue?"

Joe can feel the pain in those words. He looks at Nicolò's hesitant hands, his meek posture, and he shifts to the edge of his seat so that there's less space between them. "In the ways that you already have. In the fires that you built and the food you foraged, and the sleepless nights where you took watch so he didn't have to."

Nicolò shakes his head. "I'm dead weight to him. When we find lodgings, I cannot venture out of our rooms because I'll be killed. I don't speak the language, I can't work, and we can't stay anywhere for too long lest his people find me. Would you also not resent a man like that?"

Joe doesn’t have to speculate on his hypothetical resentment or lack thereof because, much as he'd like to forget about it, Yusuf is an unfortunate window into his own past.

"You are not dead weight. Walking the deserts, the woods, you are just as capable a man as he is. If you have to rely on him in the cities, it is by force of circumstance. And every day, it is _his_ choice to walk with you, and yet he hates _you_ for it." Joe shakes his head. "The way he talks to you, about you, it isn’t ok." 

"He's entitled to it."

Joe huffs. But these aren't empty words that Nicolò speaks, because his eyes are glossing over with tears, and it makes Joe's heart clench.

He walks over to the couch and kneels before Nicolò, looking up at him and watching those sad, pale eyes look away. "He's not entitled to your pain. He is justified in his anger, but he is not justified in his cruelty," He places a hand on Nicolò's face and rubs a thumb against his cheek. "He isn't good to you. And you don't deserve to be treated like that."

Nicolò sniffs. "I- I'm just-" his voice catches, and he tries again. "I understand why he is- but it's been-" A tear finally falls, traveling down his face and landing on Joe's skin. "It's been two years, and I just- I don't know if I can do this anymore." His voice breaks on the last syllable and then Joe is on the couch, hugging him, pulling him close to this chest, and kissing his hair.

He cries and cries, as silent as he can manage, holding onto Joe's shirt like he's a child.

"He kills me sometimes, in my sleep."

Joe makes a pained sound, his eyes stinging.

"What a miserable man. To hold something so dear in his arms and not know it."

\--

When he speaks to Yusuf, they're alone, the corridors are quiet, and he doesn't repeat himself.

"If you _ever_ put your hands on him, if you so much as breathe wrong in his presence, I will destroy you. Do you understand?"

Yusuf's breathes out through his nose, nostrils flaring and jaw tight, but he nods.

Joe lets go of him, turns around, and walks away.

\--

"Where were you?" It had been a while since Nicky had come up to their bedroom, and he usually doesn’t have to wait long for Joe to follow him. He's already pulled the covers back from their bed and was about ready to get underneath them.

Joe breathes out heavily. "He just gets under my skin," he says, rubbing his hands down his face and then ruffling his own hair.

Nicky pauses and puts down the shirt he'd been folding. Of course. "What did he do?"

"Nothing he'd own up to." Joe shakes his head, huffs again. "Nicolò came to me to apologize."

Nicky frowns.

"Exactly. And just hearing him talk- just remembering the things-" he growls, rubs at his face again. "Have you _seen_ him? He's skin and bones! Is that ungrateful child even feeding him?"

Nicky's frown deepens. "He does look thin," he agrees, "but they are walking through war-torn cities. It's not a surprise, my heart."

Joe is pacing, now. "And why does Yusuf look fine, then? Why does he get the cheese and the meats they trade for, while Nicolò's left with stale bread? God forbid he gets more than the leftovers."

"Joe, Nicolò is a grown man-"

"You defend him?"

"I'm only saying, Nicolò chooses to travel with him. He doesn't _have_ to, they're not-"

"And where will he go? Huh? Where is he supposed to go? Back to the army he deserted? To be put to death for treason? To be locked away when they find out they can't kill him? How's he meant to feed himself? Walk up to a stall with his pale face, and his pale eyes and speak an invader's tongue, ask for a bowl of soup? Is that it?"

_Then maybe he shouldn't have been an invader, to begin with._

But Nicky doesn't say that, because that's not him speaking. That's the voice of guilt that will always be a part of him. But it's been 900 years, and he knows better. He knows Joe is right.

He sighs and steps closer to him. "This isn't about food, is it? Why are you so upset?"

Joe deflates. His hands fall to his side and the anger seeps out of him.

"Tell me what's wrong."

He hears a sniffle, and when Joe looks up at him, his eyes are red-rimmed and filled with tears. "I just- they are- they're not other people, Nicolò," he says after a while. "They aren't us from some distorted reality. That was _me_. That was _you_. I did that to you. I did that. I rememb-" his voice breaks and he starts crying.

Nicky closes the few steps between them and pulls Joe into his arms, running his hand up and down his back as Joe sobs on him. "No, come on. It's ok. It's ok, my love. I'm ok. It's ok."

"It's not ok. I hate him. That self-righteous, arrogant infant. He's vindictive and cruel and he revels in your pain and I wanna fucking kill him." He pulls away from their embrace enough that he can look Nicky in the eyes again. "He doesn't know he'll replay all of it in his head for decades. He'll remember you waking up, choking on your own blood, and your eyes staring at him, asking _why_ , _why would you do that me_?"

Nicky feels his heart clench. "Oh, mio amore."

"And I'd forgotten how you'd _looked_ ," Joe says, sniffling. "I thought you were weak, then. That's what I thought. But it was because you were scared of me. Because I isolated you, I hurt you. I left you in a room with no one to talk to and I didn't spare you a word." He breathes in deeply, closes his eyes, and then breathes out. "Nicolò's so touch-starved that when I touch him, he looks at me like I could destroy him, and he'd let me. It breaks my heart."

"I know," Nicky whispers. He kisses Joe's hair and rests his cheek on the top of his head. "I know he's not ok, and we're going to help him. All I ask is that you show Yusuf even a sliver of the kindness you give to Nicolò."

Joe huffs.

Nicky pulls away and holds his face in his hands. "You are so understanding of my pain. And yet you forget your own. You forget that all he ever wanted was to be an artist and a poet. And yet, he was taken from his family and given a sword and told to go die in someone else's war. He has just lost all his brothers to people who look like me. And on that battlefield, I killed the brothers of many others. I took up that sword by choice, where he had none. That's what he sees when he looks at me. He's alone and angry and suffering, and you can't hate him into loving me."

\--

The following week is dead silent. If not for the logistics of daily life, no words would have been exchanged.

After what is a very stiff breakfast, Joe corners Yusuf in the kitchen.

Yusuf is dutifully drying the dishes – it was his turn to tidy up and he's not looking to pick up a fight. He tries to pretend that Joe's presence doesn't put him on edge, but he can feel his muscles tensing.

Joe places something on the counter, and Yusuf glances at it from the corner of his eyes. It's a book.

After another moment of silence and the sound of dishes clacking against each other, Joe speaks.

"It's a sketch book," he says. "I know it was hard to come by parchment, back then."

Yusuf looks at him and then down to the leather-bound book. Next to it are several writing utensils that he's seen him use before.

Joe picks up a small white object that's next to them. "You can use this to erase."

He doesn't say anything because if he did, it would have been, _why are you giving this to me_?

After a while of silence, Joe knocks his knuckles softly against the counter and gets up, nodding to himself.

Yusuf watches him go and doesn't say thank you, but some part of him thinks it.

\--

Joe showers Nicolò with affection.

He puts a hand on his shoulder when he walks past him while he's eating. He sits next to him on the couch so that Nicolò feels the heat of his skin. When he serves dinner, Nicolò is always the one to get the food first. He makes sure he uses any opportunity to brush elbows, hands, bump into him. Anything that will let him know, _I am here. You can touch. You are welcomed._

Nicolò doesn't initiate contact, but he flourishes under Joe's love.

They speak in Ligurian almost exclusively, and it takes Nicky forcing the Arabic back into the conversation for Joe to stop. Still, at night Joe will read to him because he knows Nicolò hasn’t heard the sound of his own tongue in two years.

But Joe knows that Nicolò and Yusuf won't reach Constantinople for at least another year, and he'll be damned if he sends Nicolò back without a voice. So, he starts teaching him Arabic. He'd forgotten how little Nicolò had known, back then. He knew words like 'food', 'water', 'sleep', 'yes', 'no', and other things that were strictly required for their survival.

Every day, they sit on the floor of the living room, books strewn across the coffee table, and Joe walks him through grammar and vocabulary. Nicky teaches too, on occasion, but more often than not, he reads a book on the couch and watches over them like a silent angel.

It's rare, but sometimes Yusuf is there as well. He sits on the other side of the room and sketches, ignoring the others but clearly unwilling to be by himself.

One time, when Nicolò mispronounces a word particularly badly, Yusuf huffs.

Joe snaps his head toward him and glares at him for a solid ten seconds, saying nothing. Yusuf doesn't mock him again.

\--

"Here, sit. I'll do your hair for you," Joe says from the couch, nodding to the space on the floor in front of him. He speaks Arabic to Nicolò more often, now.

Nicolò eyes him, stopped in his tracks for but a second before he plops down in between Joe's legs and hands him the hairbrush.

Joe brushes his hair with the gentleness and care of a mother, his fingers running softly on Nicolò's scalp to steady him or move his head this or that way.

Yusuf cannot look away. His book rests on his lap, forgotten, and he doesn't bother with pretending he's still reading it. What he _is_ doing, is gripping onto the pages tightly, lest the annoyance he feels bubble over, and he do something he'd regret.

He looks at Nicky, who's focused on his own book and hasn’t looked up since the hair brushing started. Does it not bother him? That Joe would touch another in this manner? Does he not understand the intimacy in the gesture?

When Joe is done, he places his palms on Nicolò's face and gently arches his head back so he can press a kiss to his forehead.

"There, all done."

Nicolò doesn't move from his place between Joe's legs. Joe picks up his book and doesn't move away, either.

\--

"Does it not bother you?" Yusuf blurts out.

Nicky doesn't look up from where he's chopping but hums at him.

"If he is yours- that he would put his hands on another, does it not bother you?"

This time, Nicky smiles, stills his knife, and looks up at him.

"Does it bother _you_?"

Yusuf huffs.

Nicky's closed mouth smile widens a tiny bit, and he resumes chopping. "Nicolò could use a little kindness, and Yusuf's always had a big heart." He says that last part while look at him.

Yusuf looks away and walks out of the kitchen.

\--

He isolates himself because what else is there?

He sits at the table with them because they give him no other choice, but he spends as much time as he can wherever the others are not.

The house sits in a vast field surrounded by trees, and he goes off exploring sometimes, but something about this new world terrifies him. He thinks, what if I'm found by others? He won't understand any of the people of this time. They speak another language, and they dress in strange ways, and he wouldn't know how to fake being one of them. What choice does he have but to return to that house, and surround himself with the enemies, depending on them for food and shelter because he has nowhere to go.

So he doesn’t stray. But there's a field in the back where he can climb onto the trees and kick at targets. Upstairs, a library holds hundreds of books, most in languages he couldn’t even name, but some in Arabic. A strange, modern Arabic, but it's better than nothing. He stays there for hours sometimes, ignoring the sounds of the living coming from downstairs.

It's always Nicky who finds him. Before, he had assumed Nicky just bumped into him because they shared a house, but no. It becomes clear soon enough that Nicky goes out of his way to seek him out, and Yusuf almost thinks he's become his minder. Because Nicky never initiates conversations; he'll say, "We're starting dinner in five, if you want to come." He'll say, "We keep dull swords in the shed, if you want to use them." He'll say, "Joe's going to the store, do you want anything?"

If he ignores the fact that it's a Frank speaking, he can almost appreciate the sound of fluent Arabic for a change. Whenever he hears his language in the house these days, it's always a butchered version as spoken by Nicolò, or an over-enunciated, paused version as spoken by Joe.

One day, when he heads downstairs for dinner, the smell coming from the kitchen is particularly inviting. He's taken aback when he sees Nicky carrying a bowl of what looks like Harīsa. He sits down without saying anything and waits for the others to fill their plates before he can get some.

When the first spoonful touches his tongue, he has to hold back what would have been a very embarrassing moan. It is absolutely delicious. In times of war, there was no place for good meals or even decent ones. Yusuf and Nicolò have been surviving off of bread and dried meats for the past year. And while Yusuf's had many a good meal at Joe and Nicky's table, this is just- _God_. It used to be his favorite, back when he was allowed favorites.

He's inhaled almost all of it by the time he realizes what he's doing. When he tears his eyes off the plate, he can see Joe looking at him with a smug, self-satisfied look on his face. He starts eating slower.

Slower or not, the Harīsa comes to an end and he scrapes his spoon against his bowl, trying to get every last bit of it that he can.

"I've made two potsful of it," Nicky says in Arabic. "You're welcome to more if you want."

"Thank you, habibi," Joe says as if Nicky had spoken to him. He gets up before Yusuf can and kisses the top of Nicky's head. He comes back with another bowl full of it and digs in.

Yusuf stares at Joe's bowl and stares back at his own empty one. Then he stares at Nicky, who's still working on his, and Nicolò who's looking at all of them in turns, clearly confused. His fingers twitch around his spoon and he looks at Joe's plate again.

He does not mean to make so much noise when he gets up, but his chair scrapes on the floor, and the others glance at him. In another universe, in another life, he would have whispered an apology for his hastiness. He says nothing and goes to the stove. True to his word, Nicky's made a _lot_ of Harīsa, and Yusuf loads his bowl up to its rim.

When he eats a spoonful of it, he has to, once again, bite back the moan of pleasure that wants to come with it. By god, this is the best he's ever had, and he hates that it's so. A Frank of all people, making better Harīsa than his mother. He shudders.

The embarrassment of taking a third bowl is worth the taste of the food, so he does it and tries to ignore Joe's outright laughter.

"I really am a simple man, aren't I?" Joe says to Nicky, but it's in Arabic so really, he's saying it to him.

Nicky huffs and smiles. "I want to see you move tomorrow when we spar."

"Let me have a nap, and then you can help me burn some of it off." Joe winks, and he's still speaking Arabic and Yusuf really wishes he weren't.

\--

Yusuf's mangling one of the targets with his blunt sword when Joe and Nicky show up on the field. He stops, wipes sweat off his face, and looks at one and then the other. He hadn't planned on wrapping up so soon, but he sighs and lets his arm fall to his side, sword touching the floor.

"I'll go put them away," he tells them and turns.

"You can spar with us if you want," Nicky says, wrapping something that looks like cloth around his knuckles.

Joe snorts. "That'll be fun."

Nicky gives him an unimpressed look but a fond smile.

Yusuf looks down at his sword. These men are more than nine hundred years old. He can only imagine the kind of things they would be able to teach him. If he had been as good as they are, how many lives would he have managed to save?

It's moot point, he knows, but he grips the sword a bit tighter and says, "Alright."

And most of it is watching, mouth open and heart-pounding, as Nicky and Joe dance around the field like two deadly weapons that were made in each other's image. They're fast, they're ruthless, and they're _good_. They don’t have swords on them for the first half, and Yusuf doesn't even know why they'd need them. They could easily kill a man with their bare hands and not even break a sweat. Their skill is so extraordinary that, when he's called to the field, he's not sure he should even bother anymore.

Still, Nicky fetches him and shows him form, and makes him do drills until he's covered in sweat. He doesn’t fight either of them that day and is secretly glad for it.

The third time they spar, Nicolò joins them. Yusuf doesn't know how he intends to engage any of them when he looks like a strong gust of wind could blow him away. He almost forgets, sometimes, that Nicolò had once been a formidable opponent on the battlefield.

It's tense, all of it, because sparring is something you do with your brothers-in-arm, and these people are the exact opposite of that. Still, Yusuf can't deny that the physical exertion helps ground him in this strange world. He tells himself that the better he is in battle, the better he'll defend his people next time, and that is enough.

When Nicolò and himself are finally paired to go against each other, it makes everyone stand on edge. Joe watches him like a hawk, Nicky is exaggerated in feigning nonchalance, and Nicolò-

God, Yusuf just wants to shove his dull sword into him over and over again until his guts spill on the ground as they had two years ago.

But he _can_ attack him and that's enough. He tries to control his rage and do things properly because he knows he'll be pulled away immediately if he doesn't. So, he plays by their rules and mercilessly brings his sword down, swinging it over and over, only to be met by steel. They're meant to stop their swords just before they touch each other's bodies. You hold it at their throat and then you step back to start again. You hover at their chest and again you go. Still, sometimes the momentum of it is hard to stop, so Nicky and Joe let it go. It's hard for Yusuf to pull back even when he otherwise could have, though. So, he lets his dull blade catch Nicolò in his chest, on his arm, on the back of his neck.

On a mortal man, those would have bruised later, he thinks. _Good_.

"You're not very good at stopping when you already have your win, huh?" Joe speaks up eventually.

Yusuf is distracted enough by his voice that Nicolò crashes into him and they tumble to the floor. He pushes Nicolò away and rolls his shoulder.

"Hard to stop a swing, sometimes," he says.

Joe stares at him and then nods. He walks to the shed and when he comes back, he has two swords.

"Alright, well, we'll use these ones then, you and I. Call it incentive."

Yusuf feels the urge to look at Nicky because this sounds like the kind of thing that Nicky would try to stop. He ignores the thought immediately.

"Fine," he huffs and throws his dull sword off to the side.

It becomes very clear that Joe is not interested in teaching him anything. Their swords clash, but Joe is barely moving to keep up with him. Every time Joe has an opening, he takes it. And when he takes his win, he stops his blade only a hairbreadth away from Yusuf's skin. If Yusuf were to breathe on it, he'd slice his throat open.

"See, you have to control your swing," Joe says. "It's really not that hard, is it?"

His next win draws a bit of blood from Yusuf's arm; it's barely a scratch, but Yusuf knows enough about Joe's skills to know it was on purpose.

"That's enough, Joe," Nicky speaks up. He's moved from his spot by the targets and has come closer to them.

"I'm just showing him how to do it, that's all." And he swings again.

Yusuf raises his sword quickly and manages to block the attack, but then Joe's already swinging the sword again, down towards his legs.

"Joe. I said, _stop it_ ," Nicky says, louder, and Yusuf thinks he's probably standing right next to them, now.

Joe huffs, annoyed, but starts to pull back.

Yusuf, still in full momentum from his defense, pulls his sword back upwards and feels the exact moment when it catches on something soft.

That something is not Joe.

 _This is how I die_ , he thinks. Never mind that he's, theoretically, immortal. Nicky's arm is bleeding from a wide, ugly gash and Joe is going to sever his head from his body.

He looks up from Nicky's wound to the two of them and, to his surprise, they're not looking at him.

It seems like they're having an entire conversation that consists of stares, and Yusuf wonders if they can communicate with their minds. But that's not part of their gift, is it?

Out loud, Nicky says, "I think that's enough for one day." Then he turns to Yusuf. "Go put those back in the shed. We won't need them again, will we?"

Yusuf can't explain why that sounds like a threat. He complies immediately, putting as much space between himself and Joe as he can. Once in the shed, he has to clean Nicky's blood off his sword, and it tugs at something inside him. He refuses to examine the thought.

When he comes back, Nicky and Joe are gone. Nicolò is standing there, looking at him and rubbing at bruises that have already disappeared from his skin.

\--

He sits with it for a full day. Everyone in the house is tense, and Joe is strangely not hounding him about any of it. He wonders if this means they fought with each other. But when he walks past the living room to go up to the library, Joe and Nicky are on the couch, with Joe lying on top of him and Nicky running one hand through his hair as he reads a book with the other.

It's still bizarre to see them be so blatantly open about their- whatever it is they are, but at least that answers Yusuf's question.

It's late at night when he comes downstairs to eat something before bed. He's startled to find Nicky in the kitchen; by this time, he's usually in his room with Joe.

He has a glass of water in hand and isn’t wearing a shirt. Going right back up, then. When he sees Yusuf, he nods and walks around him to head to the stairs.

Before he can think better of it, Yusuf clears his throat.

It makes Nicky pause, but not turn.

"I- ah. Sorry about-" he doesn’t complete the sentence because it cost too much to even get it out this far.

Nicky turns just enough that he can meet his eyes. He holds his gaze for a few seconds and then nods. "Goodnight."

Yusuf can't bring himself to echo the greeting, but after a while, he nods. Nicky had already continued walking, so he doesn’t see it.

\--

Later that week, Yusuf is fetching water in the kitchen while Nicky is making dinner.

He gets his water, puts the jug back in the fridge, and then just stands there, watching as Nicky works.

He doesn’t move and doesn’t say anything until Nicky speaks up.

"Can you pass me the salt?"

And Yusuf does.

\--

He lingers in the kitchen too often for it to read as anything other than what it is: intent. One day, without saying a word, Nicky leaves another cutting board out, with a second knife resting on top of it.

Yusuf eyes it, looks at Nicky, back at the knife, and then takes it.

It becomes a thing. And it's just as complicated as any of this is. Part of Yusuf resents the position he's been put in, of bonding with his- captors? Keepers? Enemies start to feel like a strong word, where before, it had been the only word. But the problem is that Nicky wasn't the one in Jerusalem with him. Not this Nicky. But he _had_ been there, nonetheless. He had done the same as Nicolò had.

"I hate you," he says, eventually.

They're making pasta from scratch. Yusuf thinks it's too much work, when you live in a world where you can just buy things like this at a store.

Nicky had been kneading the dough, but he stops and lets his arms rest on the counter. He looks up at Yusuf and waits.

When Yusuf doesn't elaborate, he nods. "I don't blame you."

Yusuf sniffs and looks off to the side. "Well, Joe does."

Nicky picks up the dough and sprinkles some flour onto it. "What I did was horrific. I regretted it then, and I've regretted it every day for the last 931 years."

Silence.

"Good."

\--

_'I regretted it then.'_

Yusuf runs that sentence through his head several times a day.

He thinks of it when Nicolò walks past him and doesn’t look him in the eye, when Nicolò avoids being in the kitchen if he's there, when Nicolò leaves the room if Yusuf is the only person in it.

For the first time, he asks himself if Nicolò even knows the Arabic word for 'sorry'.

\--

He goes to Joe. He does it because there must be some trace of himself in that man, even if buried under the weight of 900 years.

"How do you live with yourself? When you sleep next to a man who marched for _years_ to come and kill your people? How?"

And he knows that his question sounds genuine, because Joe sighs, gets up, and fetches wine from the cellar.

"Come," Joe says and leads the way to the back porch.

The red wine is rich on his tongue, aged to perfection. He has a feeling that Joe picked one of the good ones.

"Have you ever made a mistake?" Joe asks, finally. He's sipping his wine and looking at Yusuf with way too much calm. "There's this passage in their bible; it says, 'He who is without sin among you, let him throw the first stone.'"

"Don't quote their fucking book at me."

"You asked me a question. I'm giving you an answer." He pauses. "You know, the reason the Muslims ruled Jerusalem in your time was that they took it from the Christians first. By force, by blood. And the Christians had taken it from the Jews before them, in the same way. Don't you see how easy it is to paint any of them as the invader? Which one are you?"

Yusuf sniffs and takes another gulp of his wine.

"What did you think? When you fell by the walls of Jerusalem? When you woke up gasping for breath, you thought 'God favors us, above them. And my life is proof.' But then Nicolò stood up as well."

Yusuf looks into his wine glass and his hands tighten on the stem. "I couldn't understand why God brought one of them back."

"And we still don't understand, 900 years later." Joe inclines his head. "But what I do understand, clear as day, is Nicolò's heart. His kindness, his love. He is a man I would follow into the depths of hell, and he is flawed like every man who's walked the earth before him, and every man who will walk the earth after. He made a mistake. I forgave him and he's repaid it a thousand times over."

"It seems too big of a debt to repay."

Joe hums.

"We fought in the crusades, the second time around."

Yusuf widens his eyes and frowns. Of course, the fucking Frank would fight his people again, despite what Nicky said of his regret. He doesn't know why he believed him.

" _On the same side_ ," Joe clarifies. "He laid his life down hundreds of times then, for our people. _That’s_ who Nicolò is."

Yusuf stays quiet for a while, just tapping on his glass.

"How does it not feel like betrayal to you? How does it not feel like betraying our brothers? Our mother?"

Joe sighs and Yusuf thinks he looks tired. "Because I think, deep down, that if they ever met Nicolò, for the person that he is, they would understand."

They drink in silence after that. The bottle is passed around them in turns, filling their glasses and smoothing over their thoughts. When it's done, Joe speaks again.

"If you don't want to think about anything else, just remember this part. You cannot change what's happened. You cannot die. Nicolò cannot die. He will be a part of your life no matter what you do. You do not have to forgive him, but you need to let him show you that he can change. That he already has." He gets up and takes the empty bottle with him. "All you have is each other."

\--

That night, Joe calls Booker. It’s the first time they’ve spoken in a decade.

When he hangs up, he's shaken and tired, and he stares at the wall for minutes on end without moving. He doesn't notice Yusuf entering the room and jumps when he hears him speak.

"I want to ask a favor of you."

\--

It takes longer than Yusuf would like to admit, for him to gather the courage to open the jar of Pandora. Because he knows that's what it is. Once he gives Nicolò a voice, he will never be able to take it back. He will never unhear the things he has to say.

But Joe is right about one thing. He cannot escape this. He will not die and Nicolò will not die, and there will be few others like them in their very, very long lives.

So he sighs and he lets the jar of clay shatter onto the ground and release its darkness upon him.

Joe must understand the seriousness of it because he is dutiful in his role as a translator and offers no mediation or commentary.

Yusuf thought he wouldn't know where to start, but when he opens his mouth, what comes out is "Why?"

Why did you do it? Why are your people like this? Why did my people have to die? Why are you alive? Why am I alive? Why are we here?

But Nicolò looks down and he's thinking. He's clearly choosing his words.

 _This matters to him_ , Yusuf realizes and he wishes he hadn't.

"Because I believed in it," Nicolò answers finally, through Joe's voice.

Yusuf huffs, shakes his head. "Really? You had to walk through the Christian states, you had to sail your ships, you had to cross the deserts and not once, not once during all those years did you think, 'You know, maybe I shouldn't be doing this.'?"

Nicolò breathes out heavily and looks away. "No. Not even once."

"Of course not. Why would you? You're God's favored sons."

"Yes. That's what I thought."

Yusuf feels his face pulling into a sneer. "Thought?"

"Clearly, it's not what I think anymore."

"It's not clear to me at all."

"And how would it be? We've no language between us. You won't talk to me. You've never tried."

Yusuf's laugh sounds harsh even to himself. "Oh, apologies that you found my hospitality lacking." He shakes his head. "We're talking now, aren't we? So tell me, then. When did it happen? When you killed your first _Saracen_ – isn’t that what you call us? – when you saw that his blood was as red as yours, is that when you understood?"

Nicolò closes his mouth. "No."

"How many did it take, then? How many of us did you kill before it even occurred to you that you weren't some kind of savior sent from God?"

"Many. Too many."

Yusuf scoffs. "And you expect me to show you mercy."

"We didn't-" Nicolò breathes out heavily. "We didn't see you as people. You- they taught us you had no souls. That you were monsters shaped like men living on land you had stolen from us."

"What of the children, then? What of the women?"

Nicolò closes his eyes, head turned upwards, and Yusuf can see the pain on his face.

"I didn't kill them," he says, and it's a whisper.

"No. You just watched as your brethren did," Yusuf spits out. "What was your excuse for that, then? Did they feed you a story of monsters about the children, too?"

"'Now go, attack them and destroy all that is theirs. Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep. That's in the Bible, 1 Samuel 15-"

"And is this the good God you serve? Is this how you justify it?!"

Nicolò's eyes snap open and they're red and shiny. "I'm not justifying it! Nothing justifies it! You asked me why I stood by, and this is why! Because this is what I was taught! Because this is what I preached! Because every time we wavered, the generals would say 'God wills it'!"

Yusuf sneers and steps up to Nicolò so their faces are just centimeters away from each other. "No. You stood by because you are a _fucking coward_."

Nicolò's lips are trembling and his face is red. Whether it is red in anger or shame, Yusuf can't tell.

Eventually, the first tear falls and Nicolò huffs, looking away.

"Yeah, I am. I am a coward." He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes before facing Yusuf again. "I marched on your land with them. And I killed your men with them. And I absolved their soldiers when they confessed to me. And I watched them rip babes out of mothers' arms when the walls fell. And I knew it wasn't right. And I still woke up the next day, and I rode with them. Because I didn't want to confront reality. Because if your people were human, then what did that make me? The very demon I had painted upon you. And I begged for death, then. Not because I wanted God to take me home, but because if I was dead, I wouldn't have to think about it. But he didn't want me. He spat me back out, again and again. And now, here we are."

Yusuf is clenching his teeth together because he isn't sure what would happen if he opened his mouth. His throat is closing up and he is huffing through his nose and his eyes are stinging, but he refuses to hide his face.

"Apologizing will mend nothing, but I _am_ sorry. I am more sorry than you will ever understand. It eats at me every single day, that those _man-shaped_ things I killed were just _men_. Men with brothers and wives and children. And I took them from this earth. I will remember their faces until the day I die. And I will not stop regretting it, ever."

Yusuf lifts his chin and looks down at Nicolò. Nicolò, who is shedding tears, but is enough of a man to stand there, facing him.

"I do not forgive you."

Nicolò winces once Joe translates his words, but he nods minutely at hearing them.

"But I am- I'm- it's- good. That you understand. I- this is-" he pauses, looks around, gestures vaguely towards Joe, the house. "This is hard. And yet, fate has decided I cannot run from this, so I will- attempt. To be cordial."

Nicolò looks up at him, his mouth half opened in a sharp intake of breath. "I- thank you. That is more than I can ask for."

Yusuf nods and refuses to look at Joe. He can feel the man's judgment emanating off him, but this isn't Joe's life, it's his.

"I'll go help with dinner, then," He says and leaves.

\--

Cordial looks like many different things.

It means nodding in acknowledgment of Nicolò's presence when they walk past each other in the house. It means he stops purposefully giving Nicolò the chipped plate and the small glass when it's his turn to set the table. It means making enough tea for two, in the morning. It means that, when he enters the living room to ask what Nicky and himself should make for dinner, he doesn't only address Joe; it also means that he picks Nicolò's food suggestion, sometimes.

It means relaxing his muscles around Nicolò; he hadn’t known that he'd been strung so tight around the other man, but in hindsight, it is obvious. Even his facial expressions- he finally stops controlling them so much. He used to make sure that he never smiled or laughed around Nicolò if he could help it. He hadn't wanted the Frank to mistaken it for friendliness.

It's strange how light it feels when he takes it all off.

Nicolò is still tentative around him, but he doesn't seem as strung up either. His shoulders stop drooping, and he doesn't curve in on himself as much. Sometimes, he would laugh in Yusuf's presence, usually at something Joe said. Sure, it is small and contained, but then again, Nicky laughs like that most of the time too. Maybe it's just who they are.

Nicolò continues to learn Arabic and, now that he has such a dedicated teacher, his fluency is increasing in leaps and bounds. Yusuf had always thought the Frank would have been too stupid to learn Arabic. He hadn't bothered helping him and hadn't cared when Nicolò squirmed at the market in port cities, whenever he tried to accomplish even the most basic of transactions.

What he learns eventually, in Nicolò's newly passable Arabic, is that Nicolò had been a priest. He speaks Ligurian, Latin and can write and read in both. So, yeah, maybe he isn't as stupid as Yusuf had originally thought.

One night, while Joe and Nicolò have their usual lesson in the living room, Yusuf finds Nicky on the back porch. He's sipping wine and lying on a hammock, reading. When he notices Yusuf, he places his book down on his chest and looks up at him.

"They're being loud," Yusuf offers. "Joe's teaching him with children's songs."

Nicky smiles. "Joe will take any opportunity to turn things into song." He sits up a bit on his hammock. "I think Nicolò's getting good at it."

Yusuf looks at his feet and then walks over to the edge of the porch. He looks out into the dark woods for a few moments before turning around and leaning on the railing to look at Nicky.

"I guess one day he'll be as fluent as you are."

Nicky hums. "I suppose. Depends on how often he gets to use it."

It's a jab at him, Yusuf knows. But Nicky doesn't do those often, so he lets it go.

"Did you two ever live with your people?"

"By the time we lived in Genoa, they no longer spoke my language."

Yusuf taps his hand on the railing and looks at the open door to the house before looking back at Nicky.

Maybe Nicky can read the question on his face, Yusuf isn't sure. But unlike Joe, Nicky doesn't revel in making Yusuf spell out all his thoughts.

"We lived in port cities for the majority of our first decades together. Greek was the common tongue in most of them. We learned each other's languages because we wanted to."

Yusuf's mind conjures the image of a merchant in a port city, losing his patience when Nicolò couldn't remember the word for fish. He'd taken pleasure in watching it, then. He doesn't notice his fingers clenching around the railing until his hand has gone pale.

"Maybe you could teach me some," his mouth says before his brain can stop it.

Nicky's mouth twitches as he fights one of his closed-mouth smiles. Joe would have had something smug to say about it, but Nicky just nods to one of the armchairs near him.

" _Inìçio_ ," Nicky says.

"What?"

"It means, 'beginning'."

\--

When summer comes, Joe and Nicky introduce them to something they call a pool. It's a bathhouse by any other name, but Yusuf learns very quickly that the water is strange and makes his eyes sting.

Nicky is riding on Joe's back like a sleepy child. His legs are tangled around his waist, his arms strapped around his chest and his face hiding in Joe's neck as Joe does lazy laps around the pool.

It doesn't bother Yusuf as much, seeing them be so open. _Domestic_. They do it all the time, and Yusuf doesn’t think they notice. The way they walk around each other in the house, the way Joe sleep-kisses Nicky in the morning, completely unaware and half-asleep on his feet, the way Nicky will lay down with his head on Joe's lap, and Joe will run his fingers through his hair without pausing the drawing that he's working on – they are a strange, single being that inhabits two bodies and Yusuf has given up on pretending otherwise. They are not him; they are not Nicolò, and he needn’t worry about the implications.

Nicolò sits at the edge of the pool, his knees drawn up to his chest, staring up ahead and looking lost in thought. His hair has grown a lot since they'd gotten here – it had already been long, to begin with – and just like Yusuf, he's tied it up at the back of his head in a bun.

"You're gonna hurt tomorrow if you don't take care, Nicolò," Joe says in Arabic, stopping his slow laps to look up at him. They mostly speak Arabic, now, which Yusuf secretly appreciates.

Nicolò hums in confusion.

Nicky does that a lot too, Yusuf thinks. They hum in answer, they hum in question, they hum all the time instead of using words. It must cost them to open their mouth, he thinks. Even their smile is often accomplished with their mouth closed.

"Your skin, you'll burn pretty badly if you don't put sunscreen."

"Oh."

And Nicolò gets up, and he puts it on everywhere he can reach. His skin is so goddamned pale. Yusuf doesn't understand how his people survive outside in the daylight. He remembers the months they walked through the desert after they escaped Jerusalem, and he'd never once spared a glance at the burns on Nicolò's skin. He wonders, now, if they had been painful.

"Still gotta do your back," Joe tells him and has the absolute gall to flick his gaze at Yusuf.

Yusuf hopes his face is as unimpressed as he feels. Much as their tentative truce has held in the past couple of months, Yusuf has no desire to touch Nicolò in any way, shape, or form.

Nicky, who seemed like he'd been asleep on Joe's back moments ago, detangles and kisses the side of Joe's head before murmuring something in their dialect.

"Here, I'll do it," he says to Nicolò and exits the pool.

He dries his hand off, takes the sunscreen, and begins running his hands down Nicolò's back.

It's- odd.

Maybe it's the uncanny view of what should have been twins, maybe it's the anachronistic weirdness of it all, maybe it's the way there's twice as much naked skin to look at – whatever it is, it's odd. Nicky has very long fingers, he thinks. He's stronger than Nicolò, too. Nicolò looks softer, paler.

When Nicky's hands go to his shoulders, Nicolò's head droops. If it's to give him better access to his skin, or if it's because the hands feel nice, Yusuf wouldn't be able to guess.

He looks at the pool, at Joe, and wonders why Nicky had been the one to volunteer. Was it in deference to Nicky? Or in deference to Nicolò?

He huffs. Nicolò, certainly.

Yusuf can only imagine the face Nicolò would make if it were Joe running his hands all over his naked skin like that. He would probably get all flushed, sunscreen be damned. Would he have enjoyed it? Made quiet little noises if Joe ran his hands down his side?

Something in Yusuf twitches and he refuses to examine it. He takes it as his cue to head to the pool; a nice, cool bath is exactly what he needs right now.

When he breaks the surface of the water, Joe is right there, looking at him with one of those knowing little smiles on his face.

"I bet he wouldn't have minded if you had done it," he says.

"Fuck off," Yusuf says and splashes him right in the face.

\--

Nicky and Joe go off on missions sometimes. They have a team of immortals, it seems – two of which are the women that Yusuf and Nicolò see in their dreams.

When Nicolò asks if they'll meet them, Joe shakes his head and Nicky is the one who answers.

"Your dreams are all you have to guide you to them. We don't know what would happen if you met them here. If you stop dreaming of Andy, or Quynh, you will never find them in your timeline. You'll never be able to find Booker. You'll even have a hard time finding Nile."

So they stay behind while Joe and Nicky go off to wherever they need to be.

It's difficult, this thing between Nicolò and himself.

It's been months since they've become trapped in this strange, modern world. And now that they have the language for it, it's hard to not talk about it. Joe and Nicky clearly wouldn't understand Yusuf's fascination with the radio, or the electric lights, or shooting guns, so he can't help but comment on it to Nicolò, at times. He'll retreat into his own space afterwards because, often, it feels like the contact burns him. But each time, it's less jarring than the one before.

They also fight a lot, now, because Yusuf can no longer stand there and shout at him without getting shouted at, back. He misses the one-sidedness of it, sometimes, because now, Nicolò offers him nuances that are painful to listen to. He doesn't want to know about the internal fighting of the Arabs in Jerusalem. He doesn't want to know about the mad man who destroyed his own city, taking thousands of rich, historic buildings down with him. He fact checks it on the 'internet', and a large part of it is true.

Nicolò never suggests that he'd been right in his _pilgrimage_ , but it becomes harder and harder for Yusuf to pretend he doesn't understand how he got there. It's not the same as forgiveness, but it's close enough that it makes him uncomfortable.

Some days are harder than others, though. Some days, all it takes is for Nicolò to forget to take the trash out, and Yusuf will go on a tirade for half an hour that starts with, 'I'm not your servant,' and ends with, 'Well, who's the invader, here?!'.

They take their frustrations out on each other, but now part of it is done in the training field. A well-fed, well-rested and trained Nicolò is a force to be reckoned with. Yusuf finds himself on his back, with Nicolò's sword tuck under his chin far more times than he cares to count.

On the second time that Nicky and Joe leave, Yusuf finds Nicolò in the living room, practicing his Arabic by himself. It's only amusing until Nicolò realizes that Yusuf is watching him, and his face closes off in embarrassment.

What Yusuf means to say is, "Don't mind me". What he actually says is, "I can help, if you want."

And he does.

And it's weird.

He's not Joe. And Nicolò is very aware he's not Joe. And Yusuf is very aware he's not Joe. But he still works through the prompts on Nicolò's worksheets, and he still corrects his pronunciation, and he still points at the images and says "sayf" to a sword.

But he also tells him that 'hisan' means 'cavàllo', and that 'sayr' means 'caminâ'.

And Nicolò stares at him because it's the first time Yusuf's ever spoken a Ligurian word in front of him.

Yusuf clears his throat and says, in the most natural way he can manage, but still in Ligurian, "Nicky is teaching me."

Nicolò's giant pale eyes turn glossy and he looks away, hiding his face from view. It's a moment before he speaks again, "That's- it's- you're good with languages."

And the significance of it goes unspoken. Yusuf straightens the worksheet in his hand and reads out the next sentence.

\--

They're still alone in the house, and he's trimming his beard when Nicolò shows up at the bathroom door. Granted, it's his fault for leaving it open.

"Oh, sorry," Nicolò says, but doesn't turn or walk away; he stands there, staring at Yusuf.

A few months back, Yusuf would have shouted, " _What the fuck do you want_?" at him. He rests his hands on the counter and turns to look at Nicolò.

"Did you need to come in?"

"Ah. No, I'll wait."

Silence, and he's still doesn't leave.

After a while, Nicolò speaks again, "It just reminded me. I wanted to- ah," he puts his hands on his face and rubs against his beard, "erase it?"

Yusuf snorts at that and turns back to the mirror. "Shave," he says. "Shave it off."

"Shave," Nicolò repeats.

There's silence again, but Yusuf can almost hear the question hidden in it. He continues what he's doing, but says, "I can do yours next if you want."

"Next?"

"After this."

Silence. Yusuf doesn’t look his way.

"I would like that."

\--

He shaves Nicolò's beard off and it's uncomfortably intimate. Yusuf thinks that's because the last time he held a blade to Nicolò's neck, he had sliced it open.

When he's done, Nicolò looks almost identical to Nicky. Of course he does, why wouldn't he? Still, it's uncanny. Yusuf has never seen Nicolò without a beard before, it makes him look young.

It's those eyes, too. Why are they so big?

Nicolò thanks him when he's done, and they have dinner in silence.

He stares at Nicolò's smooth face, he stares at the dinner he's cooked for them, he stares at Nicolò's small smiles and he stares when Nicolò tells him that the food is delicious.

"I haven't forgiven you," Yusuf says, putting his fork down.

Nicolò looks at him for a good moment and Yusuf feels his stomach flipping because he's waiting for that relaxed expression to be wiped from Nicolò's face.

But then Nicolò says, "Forgive?"

Yusuf huffs out a breath and tries to pretend he doesn’t feel relief.

"It's nothing."

\--

Before Yusuf goes to sleep that night, his mother appears to him in her empty nest of a house.

"I haven't forgiven him," he tells her. "I haven't. I promise."

She kisses his forehead and cups his face with her hands. She's smiling at him, and he can feel the love radiating off her. He feels his chest shake in a project of a sob.

"He's kind to me, mama."

Her smile turns a little sad, and she kisses his checks.

"I know, baby. I know."

He curls in on himself and weeps as silently as he can do it until sleep comes and takes him.

\--

Joe is like a snake, Yusuf decides. Tasting things in the air and scurrying away to gloat about it.

He doesn't know how Joe knows. Rather, he doesn't know _what_ he knows. There's nothing to know. Nothing's changed between himself and Nicolò. Nothing at all. But whatever Joe thinks he knows, it makes him smile smugly over morning tea. Yusuf stares right back at him, unimpressed.

Now that his Ligurian secret is out, Joe teases him about it mercilessly. Dropping Ligurian phrases or words into their usual Arabic conversation, just to spite him. Well, Yusuf thinks he's doing it to spite him, he could just be trying to be helpful. It's hard to tell because of the smile he always has on his face.

 _Is that what I look like_? Yusuf wonders, at one point.

Yes, it is, he decides. Because he remembers his brothers complaining about his smugness whenever he'd been right about anything.

"Do you have any brothers?" he asks Nicolò, one day.

It's dangerous territory, he knows it, but the words get pulled out of him anyway.

Nicolò pauses, puts down the book he's holding, and looks at him. It's a children's book; he's slowly learning how to read Arabic.

"Two older ones. Three younger sisters."

"When have you last seen them?"

"When I left to become a priest. Fifteen years now, just about."

Yusuf hums.

Nicolò is looking off to the side and his fingers are white as he grips his book. There's nothing casual about any of this and they both know it.

"You- how many did you…?"

"Four." _They're all dead now_ , he doesn’t say because Nicolò knows that. And he knows that Nicolò knows. And they both know how they died and who killed them. "Hamid was the eldest. Then Yaqub, myself, Tahir, and Ahmad was the baby. He was seventeen."

He can see how tightly Nicolò is clenching his jaw, and how his eyes look shinier than usual. He looks away.

"Hamid and I never got along. He was always too serious, and I wanted to be a poet," he starts.

And then he doesn't stop. He tells Nicolò stories about growing up with his siblings, what they were like, and how all of them ended up being merchants with his father. Nicolò talks about his own family, and his sisters, who he misses dearly. They don’t talk about death or war that day; this fragile thing between them wouldn't have survived it.

At night, Yusuf doesn't beg his mother for forgiveness, but she comes to him and forgives him, anyway.

\--

They spar regularly now, the four of them.

After the session that had ended in Nicky getting hurt, they hadn't done it again for weeks. But Joe and Nicky learned to trust him again.

He'd like to say that rolling around in the sand with Joe reminds him of rough housing with his brothers, but realistically, Joe is a master at every form of fighting that Yusuf could name. If Yusuf got an upper hand on him at any moment during training, it was because Joe let him.

"See, your arm is angled the wrong way," Nicky says. He's crouched next to the mess of limbs that is the two of them. Joe is on top of Yusuf and Yusuf has his legs wrapped around him, his hands bunched up in his shirt, and yet he's still the one who's pinned down.

"If he pushes on your elbow, he'll break your arm. You're making it too easy," Nicky continues. "Here, turn your elbow out and bend it a bit," he maneuvers Yusuf like one would a doll, "Now if he tries to push closer, you can break his nose."

He does wanna break Joe's nose sometimes.

"Here, let's switch. Let me show you," Nicky says and takes up the same position he'd been in – his legs wrapped around Joe's waist, Joe's arms pulling him off the ground.

Yusuf feels himself twitch at the sight, and he can barely hear what Nicky is saying because all he can do is imagine the two of them in this exact position, but in a different setting. Their room is right next door to Yusuf and Nicolò's. Yusuf hears them sometimes. It's- disconcerting.

"Alright, go on. The two of you, then," Nicky says as Joe helps him to his feet. They both wipe their hands on their pants and wipe sweat from their brows. They seem either oblivious to how compromising a scene they had painted, or they choose to ignore it.

The rest of the sentence registers with a delay. _The two of you, then_. Right, Nicolò and himself.

It's not as if they hadn't wrestled before. Yusuf can do it. He just wishes the inappropriate heat he can feel emanating from the lower parts of his body would disappear.

Distraction or inability, Yusuf is the one pinned to the ground again. Nicolò is straddling him, face flushed, hair sticking to his forehead, shirt sticking to his skin. He's-

Yusuf feels himself twitch again and he immediately taps out.

Nicolò dutifully gets off him and rolls off to the side, sprawling out on the floor, exhausted.

"Alright then, that's enough excitement for one day," Joe says, and Yusuf doesn’t dare look at him. "We'll take the shower first. You can use the pool one if you need to cool down. I think we're gonna be a while." He punctuates that by nudging at Yusuf with his foot.

Yusuf hears a soft smack, followed by Nicky speaking in their dialect. The only parts of it he understands are _habibi_ and the Ligurian word for _don't_.

He absolutely goes to the pool shower and stands there for a full minute, letting the cool water run down his body and wash the images away with it.

If he takes longer in the bathroom that night, when he finally gets his turn to shower, no one needs to know. If he thinks of Nicky's legs wrapped around Joe and imagines the thrusting that would come with it, no one needs to know. And if he thinks of Nicolò's weight on top of him, of his flushed face and glistening skin, no one ever needs to know.

\--

He doesn't ask Joe. He doesn't ask him because he wouldn't be able to stand the self-satisfaction on his own, stupid face.

And Nicky is kind – Yusuf's not afraid of admitting that anymore. Nicky doesn't comment on his decisions. He doesn’t try to poke Yusuf into any one course of action. Yusuf understands why Joe likes – _loves_ – him.

"How did you- When did you… become?"

"Eight years after we left Jerusalem," Nicky says. He doesn’t have to ask what Yusuf is talking about.

Eight, that means they still had 5 years to go.

Wait. No, that's not-

"We lived in Constantinople at the time. We stopped hating each other once we both learned to speak Greek."

"And he forgave you?"

Nicky pauses, cocks his head to the side, and then gives a small shrug.

"I'm not sure he had, at that point. You'd have to ask him."

"And still, you…?"

"Yes."

Yusuf doesn't sigh. He doesn’t.

"Just because you guys did, doesn't mean we have to."

"That's true."

"We're not the same people."

"We're not."

He almost wishes he _had_ gone to Joe, instead.

\--

Life goes on. They find no answers. And slowly, Yusuf finds himself accepting it.

The food of Nicky's people – or, of the country that now sits on his birthplace – is beyond delicious. Lasagna, focaccia, pizza, risotto, Yusuf loves all of it. And Nicky can _cook_. He's introduced them to cuisines from all over the world. He's made many dishes from Yusuf's people but also dishes his people haven't even invented yet. And Nicky doesn't only cook. He's sharp and wise and he knows _so much_. He'll rattle off facts about any given topic without looking up from whatever he's doing. He's a master sniper, and his aim is an impressive thing to witness – he's teaching Nicolò how to better shoot a crossbow, and Yusuf quietly piggybacks on the lessons.

Nicky was easy to like. Or, easier. With Joe, things take a long time. The first thing he learned about Joe still stands true: he will destroy everything that poses a threat to his family. Yusuf supposes that's a trait they share; it was just hard being the threat that Joe wanted to destroy. But Joe's interest in teasing him melts some of his anger away. And then Yusuf starts seeing the teacher in him, the patience, the skill, the ability to focus on one thing for hours. Joe's art is- Yusuf can only imagine being that good, one day. Joe has countless sketchbooks filled with pictures of Nicky, Nicolò, and even Yusuf. He finds out, many months in, that some of the paintings on the walls were made by him, too. And, of course, Joe is a poet, and part of Yusuf envies the richness of his life.

And Nicolò. Well.

Nicolò is a jumble of contradictions. He's studious, but in a way that speaks of rigid conditioning. Yusuf can picture him in a monastery, copying out every word of his holy book. But Nicolò cares more about knowledge than he does indoctrination. When Yusuf tells him about his people, he basks in the facts like a sponge; his interest and curiosity are genuine to the point of being unsettling. He's not as relaxed as Nicky is, though, he still carries himself like he doesn't fit his skin properly.

Reluctantly, Yusuf's hatred simmers down into a quiet flame that lives somewhere off in the back of his mind. It's hard to hate a man with all his being when he's grown to understand him. At one point, as Yusuf stands in the doorway, looking at Nicolò hunched over Arabic textbooks, he thinks that Nicolò was as much a victim in the war as he was. He backpaddles the thought immediately. Not a victim, no. Yusuf still blames him for his actions. But someone who, deep down, thought he'd been doing the right thing.

It would be a year, soon. One year since they landed in this- whatever this was. Alternate universe, the future, another reality. And it's strange to realize how things had changed.

They had slowly learned to talk about other things. Things that weren't war, or politics, or death and regret. Nicolò's spoken Arabic is impressively good, now. He has a thick accent, sure, but it doesn't detract from their conversations. Yusuf would even describe some of their conversations as casual, because sometimes they talk about novels and movies and other inconsequential things usually shared between friends. Friends.

Yusuf had that realization at some point. They had been sat on the couch, watching Joe's movie choice. Nicky was sleeping on Joe's chest, and Joe had followed soon after. He and Nicolò were left to talk about the movie by themselves, once it was over. When Nicolò got up to get a beer, he asked if Yusuf wanted one, too. It was such a simple question, like many before it, but as Yusuf looked at him in the blue light of the paused TV, he just- _knew_. This had been a couple of months ago.

Now, as he watches Nicolò read books in three different languages, as he sees him start to learn Greek, as he sees him memorize maps and absorb tactical information- it's hard to reconcile him with the man Yusuf thought he was. This man is not a soulless, uncultured, bloodthirsty thug. He is- he-

Yusuf doesn't linger on it, too much.

\--

Nicolò has nightmares.

Yusuf does, too. He knows what it's like to wake up in the middle of the night, sweating and gasping, still processing that all the death and blood you were seeing was just a dream.

They don't talk about it, although Yusuf is sure that Nicolò knows, seeing as they share such close quarters.

Sometimes, after a nightmare, Nicolò gives up on sleep altogether and sneaks out of their room quietly. Yusuf can imagine him sat downstairs on the couch, curled up with a book, or watching a movie with the lowest volume setting on.

This time, when Yusuf is awakened by a sharp gasp, he doesn't roll on his side and try to go back to sleep. He rubs at his eyes and props himself up on his elbow so he can look at Nicolò's sleeping form, a couple of meters away.

Nicolò is tossing around, his sheets completely tangled at his feet. He looks even paler in the dark, Yusuf thinks.

With his mind still foggy from sleep, Yusuf gets off his mattress before he can think better of it and makes his way over to Nicolò. He kneels by him and his hand hovers in the air, uncertain. Nicolò is sweating through his clothes, his hair stuck on his face, and he looks miserable. Carefully, Yusuf lets his hand rest on Nicolò's shoulder and gently shakes him.

"Nicolò."

He gets a soft sound in return.

"Nicolò, destati," he says and shakes a little bit harder. "It's just a dream. Destati."

Nicolò's hand blindly feels at his arm. He scrunches up his face and makes another small sound.

"Yeah, come on, wake up." Another shake.

Nicolò frowns, his hand curled around Yusuf's forearm, and his eyes slowly blink open. He's squinting up at him, confused and breathing hard but awake, nonetheless.

Then, his eyes snap open the rest of the way, and he lets out a startled noise before he slaps Yusuf's arm away and jumps up from his mattress, fitting himself up against the wall. His eyes are wide, and his hand goes to his own throat as he starts making gasping, choking sounds. He stares at his hand, brings the hand back to his neck, clutches at it, and then looks at it again.

Blood. He's looking for blood.

He does this a couple more times until his breathing starts calming down and his eyes are not as wide as before.

Yusuf can't explain the knot of guilt that tugs in his own stomach. And, at this moment, their complicated mess of a relationship gives way to a much simpler thought. _He's scared of me_.

"Me dispiâxe," he says, empty hands opened and palm up. "You were- you were having a nightmare, I thought-" It seems like a stupid idea, now.

Nicolò's looks at Yusuf's hands, then at his face, and visibly swallows. Nodding through his labored breathing, he checks his own hand for blood again. "I was just startled."

Yusuf breathes in heavily and sits back on his feet. He can't remember ever being this close to Nicolò outside of their sparring matches. Maybe the last time he'd done it was when he'd been screaming into his face that he was a coward.

"I was terrorizing you," he says. And he hadn’t meant to.

"What-"

"Before. The past two years. You- I shouldn't have done that."

Nicolò looks pained and then looks away.

"I kept killing you. When you were asleep- when you couldn't defend yourself. Or when I was angry and frustrated that you couldn't understand me."

"You anger was warranted," Nicolò says, and his voice sounds hoarse. He's still clutching his own neck.

"Yes. But not my cruelty."

"Joe said that to me, once."

"And to me, as well. He- can be wise when he wants to be."

Nicolò gives him one of his barely-there smiles. "Yes, you are."

Yusuf huffs, looks down. "I shouldn't have isolated you. I should have tried to talk to you."

"I shouldn't have invaded your land and killed your people."

Yusuf shook his head. "No, you shouldn't have. But we already know that. And the first few months we traveled together were enough. You stopped killing me a few days in, but I never did. You don't fight a man who's not fighting back, but I kept doing it. I did it for two years, and I was wrong in that. I'm sorry."

Nicolò makes a choking sound, but this time, it's because he's crying. Yusuf feels his eyes sting, too.

It hurts. It hurts to say any of it. It hurts to admit it when he could barely admit it to himself. It hurts to feel like he's doing the right thing by apologizing, but the wrong thing by betraying his family. Nicolò still makes him so angry at times, but he's slowly accepting that two things can be true at once. He hates what Nicolò did, but he doesn't hate Nicolò.

It feels cathartic to even think it.

Nicolò nods at him and wipes at his tears.

"You were having a nightmare," Yusuf says, because he doesn't know what else to say.

Slowly, Nicolò unpeels himself from the wall and comes back to his cot. He sits down and pulls the sheets back onto his lap. "I get those sometimes." Pause. "You do, too."

Yusuf nods. "About the siege?"

A hum in ascent. "When I told you, I see their faces…"

Right.

"I see the children," he says, and it earns him a pained noise.

They share in the heaviness of their silence until Yusuf gets up without saying anything. He walks to his mattress and drags it over so they're but a few centimeters from each other, then he sits down and faces Nicolò. "I was reading that book Nicky showed me."

"O Priçipìn?"

Yusuf nods and then arranges himself so that he's against the wall, comfortably propped up on his pillow. "He says the Ligurian is too modern, but at least it's not in Italian."

That earns him a small, soft smile and Nicolò lies on his side, looking at him. "I don't think Nicky likes the Italians very much."

"No, he really doesn't."

They talk for a bit, and Yusuf plays with the loose threads of his sheets until he decides to speak up. "I can read for a bit- if you need a distraction. My Ligurian reading skills are about as bad as you would think, but I can read you an Arabic one."

Nicolò smiles and his eyes are crinkled in something that could be fondness. "I would love to hear you butcher my language."

Yusuf huffs. It's strange that Nicolò feels comfortable enough to do this kind of thing, now – tease him, banter. It would have been unthinkable even a month ago.

"Don't say I didn't warn you."

And he brings the book from where he left it in the library and opens one of the curtains in the room so that the moonlight can get in. He opens the book to where he'd left off last time.

" _A shee- ep, I… answer-ed, eats a-any-thing it fi…nds in its reach._

_Even flo- flow- flowers that have… thorns?_

_Yes, even flow-ers that have thorns._

_Then the thorns--what u… use are they_?"

He struggles his way through two pages, staring at the little character of the prince, with his golden hair and his bright eyes. When he looks over at Nicolò, he finds him already asleep.

\--

They don't move their mattresses away. They don't say anything about it.

\--

Later that week, Yusuf is making breakfast and he doesn't realize he's singing to himself until Joe comes in, half asleep, and just stands there, staring.

"You slept well," he says. And if it had been at any other time, Yusuf would have thought he was teasing him. He knows Joe isn't capable of coherence or malice before he has his coffee, though. He wonders how many other times he'd interpreted Joe's earnestness through the lens of his own hostility.

"I did."

And that's all they speak of it. And Nicolò comes downstairs, his hair up in a messy bun, and he smiles at Yusuf. It's a small thing, closed mouth and tentative, but Yusuf smiles back.

He serves Nicolò's food first.

\--

He's half asleep and doesn't process what the sounds are, but the shuffling noises continue like it's someone knocking at a door, demanding his attention. His eyes squint their way open but even so, they only open halfway.

Yusuf can see Nicolò tossing around on his mattress, an arm's length away. _Nightmares, again_. He doesn't think it over. Doesn't think at all, really. All there is to it is that he's too tired to care, too lazy to get up, and too asleep to speak. His hand lifts, slow and uncoordinated, and it lands gently on Nicolò's hair.

Nicolò only opens his eyes briefly. He looks at Yusuf for a moment, closes his eyes again, and then scoots closer to Yusuf's hand as he falls back asleep.

When morning comes, the gesture feels like it was too intimate a thing. Not only does Yusuf vividly remembers doing it, but he's certain that Nicolò does, too.

It's awkward when they go to bed that night.

Nicolò lingers by the door as if he's waiting for Yusuf to lie down first. And when he finally follows him, his posture is stiff and unnatural – his hands lay over his chest and his eyes look up towards the ceiling. He looks like he's ready to be buried under ground, and Yusuf knows very well he doesn't sleep like that.

Yusuf opens his mouth, and Nicolò's fingers tighten against each other, so he closes it again. His heart is beating so loud in his ears that he wonders if Nicolò can hear it too. But, really, Nicolò's chest is moving just as rapidly, so Yusuf decides to just risk it. He lifts his hand, and he's never been so aware of moving his body before. He can feel the air touching his skin, the twitch of his fingers, and the weight of his arm. But he does it anyway, heart at his throat be damned, and lets his fingers whisper a touch against Nicolò's hair.

Nicolò's breath catches in his throat and he closes his eyes as his body shivers.

Yusuf opens his mouth again – he should say something, he thinks. His fingers still haven’t moved one way or another, and he should probably ask-

Nicolò's head shifts minutely, almost imperceptibly, towards Yusuf's hand and Yusuf exhales loudly. He lets his fingers sink into the softness of Nicolò's hair, tracing his scalp and drawing a sigh out of him. Nicolò doesn't open his eyes again and Yusuf is glad. He's not ready to face this, or himself, either.

\--

The next day, Nicolò comes to the kitchen at five and says, "I, ah. Nicky's watching a movie with Joe. I thought we could let him take the day off from making dinner."

And he's standing there with his fingers tracing his own hands, looking at a spot just above Yusuf's shoulder.

Yusuf's mouth twitches into a smile. He takes the chopping knife from the counter, walks over to where Nicolò's still standing by the doorway, and offers it to him, handle first.

"I'll show you," he says.

And when Nicky and Joe show up at the Kitchen, an hour later, there's food on the table and pesto sauce on Nicolò's shirt.

\--

And they do it every night.

Nicolò will lie on his back, hands on his chest, and Yusuf will wait until his eyes are closed before he starts running his fingers through his hair. He knows when Nicolò falls asleep because his breathing evens out and the tension in his hands eases. Only then will Yusuf pull his hand back and proceed to dutifully keep all his limbs confined to his own mattress for the rest of the night.

But one day, it's different.

One day, Nicolò doesn't close his eyes. He slowly turns on his side so that he's facing him. They stare at each other for a few moments and, eventually, Yusuf puts his hand on his hair, anyway.

Without breaking eye contact, Nicolò slowly shifts forward, breaking the imaginary wall between their two mattresses, and then his head is touching Yusuf's chest. It's a whisper of a thing; it barely qualifies as contact, but Yusuf can feel it burn against his skin.

He doesn't think about it. He lets his body do what it wants to do, and he shifts to his back and brings Nicolò with him, embracing him against his chest before returning his fingers to his hair. He feels Nicolò start to shake before he feels his tears soaking through his shirt.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," Nicolò says, burying his face into Yusuf's neck.

Yusuf can't help but nuzzle his cheek against Nicolò's hair, it's so soft. His lips brush against his head, but he can't bring himself to kiss it. It's too much. It would-

He doesn't want to open that door, now.

"I know," he whispers into his hair. "I am, too."

They stay like that for a while. The only sounds in the room that of Nicolò's labored breathing.

Eventually, Yusuf finds his voice again.

"I miss them."

Nicolò makes a pained sound and his body curls into Yusuf's even more.

"I'm sorry."

"I know."

"I'm sorry."

"I know. I know," he says and then shushes him softly, rocking him the slightest bit while still running his fingers through his hair.

Nicolò falls asleep like that, puffy-eyed and tear-streaked, holding onto Yusuf's damp shirt.

When his mother comes to him that night, Nicolò is there, too. She looks at him – and her eyes have always been so wise. She's quiet, but Yusuf thinks she understands.

\--

Yusuf doesn't leave.

He wakes first and he's still holding Nicolò against his chest, and he waits for him to wake up because he wants him to know that he chose to stay.

"Bongiórno," he greets when those pale eyes look up at him.

Nicolò hides his face in Yusuf's chest, but he doesn't pull away, either. "Bongiórno."

Yusuf pets his hair – and it's daylight, and that's new, but he doesn't mind. _It's not just the still of the night_ , he wants to say. _I do it because I want to_ , he wants to say. His fingers speak it for him.

\--

"I'm gonna miss them," Nicky tells him

They're spent, skin flushed, and lethargic from an intense orgasm.

Joe has his eyes closed and he hums. "We don't know when they're leaving, habibi."

Nicky sighs, breathing in the scent of Joe's hair, and kisses the side of his neck. "You called Booker."

"Yes, you already know that."

"So, we've learned our lesson, and they've learned theirs."

Joe laughs. "Is that what the universe wanted, my heart? And as it is fulfilled, they will be returned, and things will be set to rights?"

Nicky hums.

"It's a nice thought. That the universe cares for us so much."

"Doesn't it? Why else would it have given you to me?"

Joe smiles and kisses the bridge of his nose. "And you say I'm the hopeless romantic."

\--

"And where had they gone?"

"England," Nicky says.

Joe nods. "We don't know the exact date because we weren't with them. When Andy came back, she was too shocked to explain. But it was in the early 16th century."

"1510-1520, I think?"

Yusuf amends his notes. "Ok, don't separate during the witch hunts of the 16th century."

"Probably don't separate during the witch hunts at all." Nicolò shrugs.

"Women were the main target. If we were to redo those rescue missions, Nicky and I should have done the fieldwork."

"Alright."

"And Booker," Nicky sighs, "I almost want you to stop him from ever meeting his wife." He buries his face in his hands and rubs at his eyes.

Joe is quiet for a moment and then he draws in a large breath and gets up from his spot on the couch. He disappears upstairs and, when he returns, he has an envelope with him.

He hands it to Nicolò before sitting back down. "Booker wants you to give this to himself."

Nicky looks at him, a small frown on his face, before he stares at the sealed letter and back again a couple of times.

"If it doesn’t survive – or, well, even if it does – Booker told me he should have talked about his children more. To us, I mean. We all tried so hard to tip toe around it, not set him off. He said it'd be better to speak of them, keep them alive with us. Celebrate their birthdays and visit their graves, tell stories of their childhoods and hang paintings of them in the house. Maybe this way he wouldn’t have had to drink himself into forgetting."

Nicky's mouth tightens into a thin line, and he squeezes Joe's leg. They stare at each other for a good moment, before resting their foreheads together and sharing a quick kiss.

"If you succeed in saving Quynh, it might be even harder for him this time around," Nicky says when he pulls away.

"Two happy couples instead of one?" Yusuf says and immediately freezes.

Fuck.

He did not mean to say that.

He doesn’t look at Nicolò, because he can feel his face growing hot with embarrassment and he doesn't want to see the look on Nicolò's face.

"Indeed," Nicky agrees, and his attempt to hide his own smile is shoddy work at best.

Joe doesn't hide his grin though, he leans back on the couch, an arm over Nicky's shoulder and his legs spread in a comfortable stance.

 _Shut up_ , Yusuf thinks, but reroutes the conversation back to how they were supposed to fix the future.

\--

"I'm proud of you," Joe tells him, later.

Yusuf pretends he can't hear him.

The kitchen had become his domain, really. Sometimes, Nicky would cook with him, sometimes it was Nicolò – even Joe had volunteered on a few occasions. But it is his, and so he grips his knife and continues de-stemming his strawberries.

"Don't start. I'm gonna stab you," he says, but doesn’t look up.

Joe snorts. "You couldn't stab me unless I let you."

It's true, Yusuf knows.

They stay in silence for a little longer, and then Joe leans on the counter and nudges him with his foot.

"Took me another five years to get to where you are now."

"I'm not- we're-" he shakes his head, "not." _Yet_ , he doesn’t say, but Joe hears it regardless.

Joe smiles, an amused huff of air escaping him. "I'm jealous, you know?"

Yusuf snaps his head up and frowns.

Joe laughs. "No, not in that way. I'm jealous because, by the time you die, you'll have had five more years with Nicolò than I did."

Yusuf stares at him for a long moment. "Andy is six thousand years old. What will five years be to you, when you're her age?"

"A lot. I could live by Nicolò's side until the earth turned to dust and it would never be enough." He takes one of the strawberries, picks at it with his fingers, plays with the stem, but doesn't pull it apart. "Treasure it. Every moment. Every day. Every first. It'll pass you by in a blink."

Yusuf recognizes the seriousness in his own face. At that moment, Joe isn't Joe. Joe is Yusuf, older, wiser. Happier.

"I will," he promises.

"Good," Joe says and bites into the strawberry before pushing himself off the counter.

"If you need any tips…"

"Get _out_ of my kitchen!"

\--

"…and Aiysha fell behind the gate, she'd not… forgot? The friend she made. The sun came up, and down again. But they were wo- wor? Worth? Be-lie-ve. Ah! Worth believing in."

Good god, it had been months since he started learning to read Arabic, and he still stumbled over simple words like a toddler.

Oblivious to his shortcomings, Joe claps when he's done. "Amazing! That was perfect, Nicolò!"

He feels his cheeks heating up under the praise and lets the book fall to his lap.

"I take too long to connect the words."

"No, you don't. That's the fifth book you got through in, what? A couple of months?"

"It's just children's books, Joe."

Joe shakes his head, but he's smiling. "You need to stop minimizing your accomplishments."

Nicolò doesn't like to think about his _accomplishments_. Most of them are too bloody to speak of.

"Where have you gone?" Joe asks, and Nicolò realizes he's been quiet too long.

"I'm gonna miss you," he says before he even realizes he's going to say it.

Joe huffs and smiles, eyes crinkling. "What is it with you, Nicolòs? Nicky thinks your time is coming up soon, too. I'm starting to think the two of you can smell it in the air."

He gets up from the couch and crouches before Nicolò, takes his book, sets it aside, and then puts his hands on Nicolò's face. "It doesn’t matter if you go back tomorrow. I will always be exactly where I belong – at your side. You are my life. And there is nowhere you can go, that I will not follow."

For a moment, when Joe leans in, Nicolò can feel his heart skipping a beat. Alarms ring through his body, and he thinks of Yusuf, but Joe only angles his head down and places a kiss on his forehead.

"Now, stop thinking ill of the man I love. Or you'll get the same earful from me that Yusuf did a year ago."

Of course, Joe knows. Nicolò smiles, sniffs to hide his tears, and then nods.

\--

"Joe told me you and Nicky think we're going back soon," Yusuf says.

The hammock is swaying slowly, and the two of them are sat next to each other, sipping the wine Joe had made himself. It's pretty good.

Nicolò shrugs. "One year coming up, I suppose. Seems like the time, doesn't it?"

Yusuf takes another sip of his wine. After a while, he closes his eyes and lets his head fall back onto the hammock. "What happens if we never go back? What if we just stay here?"

Nicolò sighs. "Doesn't feel right."

Yusuf opens his eyes. "No, it doesn't," he agrees. "I miss home."

" _Home_ , home?"

"Our time. I miss it. This doesn't feel real to me."

Nicolò turns and looks at him. "Do you think it'll go back to normal?"

Yusuf frowns.

"How we used to be."

His frown deepens and he sits up again. He turns so he's facing Nicolò straight on. "No."

"What if this is a dream? And we forget?"

"I won't forget. I won't forget Jerusalem, but I won't forget this, either."

It earns him a small, closed-mouth smile. His eyes flick to Nicolò's lips and his heart tugs in his chest. God, when Nicolò drinks wine, his lips get tainted red and his cheeks grow flushed and he just-

Nicolò is looking at him with equal attention, unblinking. Those pale, grey-green-blue eyes flicker down his face and back up again. Yusuf wonders if he can feel it too.

There's nothing but the sounds of their breaths. The hammock has stilled, and the world has gone quiet, and all Yusuf can do is look at Nicolò's lips and then his eyes, and then his lips, again.

Nicolò opens his mouth, and Yusuf is afraid he's going to say something to dismiss this. So, he gathers his courage, leans in, and presses his lips to Nicolò's.

There's a gasp, but Nicolò's lips are soft and they taste of red wine, so Yusuf ignores it. His face is burning, and he can feel himself twitching in his pants and his heart is just about ready to leap off his chest, but he did it.

Nicolò opens his mouth to him and, fuck, he's warm. Yusuf angles his head and opens his mouth in return, chasing the taste of Nicolò with his tongue. It earns him a moan and then Nicolò's tongue is in his mouth, too.

He blindly places his wine on the floor, and he's not sure he didn’t knock it over. For good measure, he takes Nicolò's glass and does the same. They don't break from their kiss, and once his hands are free, he lets them cradle Nicolò's face – he's wanted to do that for so long. It's easy, then, to angle Nicolò's face as he sees fit, and the two of them snap into place like a puzzle.

Nicolò's hands are tentative, but they land on his thighs and stay there, unmoving. They grip him from time to time, in rhythm with the moans that escape Nicolò's mouth, and Yusuf doesn't think that he knows he's doing it. He's also worried he won't be able to get up properly if the heat of Nicolò's hands remains so close to his crotch.

As if answering his thoughts, Nicolò brings his hands up from Yusuf's lap to grip at his neck, pulling him closer. Yusuf feels himself groan at the feel of Nicolò's nails on his skin and he bites at his lower lip softly. That earns him another moan and then Nicolò pulls away. Their foreheads stay connected and their breaths are coming in pants and Yusuf playfully nips at his lips again; he gets a kiss in return.

Nicolò has all but climbed onto his lap, and Yusuf can feel him pressing against his thigh.

"We," he clears his throat, "upstairs." That's not the sentence he had meant to say, but it's all his brain can conjure when the rest of his blood has gone off elsewhere.

"I think they're in the kitchen," Nicolò says. Despite that, his thumb finds Yusuf's lips and pulls down on them before he replaces it with his mouth and sucks at Yusuf's bottom lip.

"You're-" _gonna kill me_ , he almost says. Thankfully, his brain kicks in long enough to censor it; they can't use words like that with each other, not yet. "We make a run for it, then."

Nicolò laughs. Actually _laughs_ , with his lips parted and his teeth showing. Yusuf wants to make him do that more often.

"It's not like they don't know," he argues.

He gets a kiss for his troubles, and then Nicolò slides away from him.

"Ok, just- give me a moment to…" he gestures very vaguely, but it's downwards enough that Yusuf knows what he means.

The tension in the silence and the promise of touch is not helping at all, so Yusuf gets off the hammock and stands against the railing of the porch for a bit. He tries to focus on the dark woods surrounding the house and tries not to think about the weight of Nicolò's thighs on his.

He knows he's successfully distracted himself because he startles when he feels a kiss to the back of his neck. When he turns around, Nicolò looks uncertain again, one foot back as if he's waiting for Yusuf to ask why he'd done that. Yusuf closes the space between them, places a hand on his face and a soft, but lingering kiss on his mouth. Nicolò's hand covers his and he can almost feel their hearts beating in tandem.

"Good?"

"Good."

What isn't good is the mortifying ordeal of walking through the kitchen so they can head upstairs. Yusuf knows the sight they make. Nicolò's lips are red from the wine and Yusuf's kisses, his face is flushed, and his hair has escaped the band that usually keeps it away from his face. Yusuf can only imagine what he himself looks like right now – utterly debauched, probably. He feels it, too.

It's comical how Nicky and Joe stop in unison to watch them come in. Whatever words they had for them die on their tongue once they get a proper look at them. Nicky, at least, has the decency to bite the inside of his mouth to keep his smile from taking over his face. Joe is just grinning at them like the cat who caught the canary.

It's ridiculous. They walk the entire length of the kitchen in complete silence and Joe and Nicky pivot on their feet to watch them do it. He thinks they'll manage to escape without any commentary, but, of course, when they reach the doorway, Joe speaks up.

"Shall I set the table for dinner, then?"

Yusuf can hear the grin in his voice and doesn't bother replying because now they've reached the stairs and Joe and Nicky can't see them anymore. They sprint up like giggling children and run into their bedroom, closing the door behind them.

Nicolò has his back against the door and Yusuf stares at him for all of two seconds before he lunges.

Clothes are strewn all over the bedroom floor and they crash into at least five different surfaces before tripping their way into nakedness and their mattresses.

Nicolò's head hits the pillow and Yusuf's mouth is on his, hand tangling in his hair. Nicolò grips at his neck and pulls him down, arching up and shifting so that one of Yusuf's legs is between his own. They both groan at the contact.

Yusuf only breaks their kiss because he's eager to mouth at Nicolò's jaw instead, and then his neck, and then his collarbone. He tastes his way down Nicolò's body, and it becomes a game of what sound he can draw out of him next. He has him writhing beneath him, arching off the bed and digging his nails into Yusuf's shoulder. But Yusuf won't let up. He's wanted this for- he can't even admit it to himself, but _long_. Too long.

"Yusuf, I- Oh, god!" Nicolò shouts when Yusuf engulfs him with his mouth.

He can hear Nicolò's feet sliding on the mattress and he knows he's desperate, overwhelmed with the sensations. He holds his hips down so he can't escape and swallows him whole, sucking on him while his fingers wrap around the base of cock.

Nicolò's hands are on his hair, but his fingers are pulling and pushing and just _gripping_ in equal parts. The cries that he lets out sound like Ligurian but could just as easily have been meaningless moans. Then, his fingers tighten on Yusuf's hair, and he says something that sounds like a warning. Yusuf ignores him and sucks him down harder, twirling his tongue around the head of Nicolò's cock until Nicolò arches off the bed with a shout and comes in his mouth.

It's bitter and warm and, when Yusuf looks up to see Nicolò flushed and open-mouthed, he thinks it's the best thing he's ever tasted in his life.

Nicolò crumples onto the mattress like a marionette and Yusuf stays where he is, running his hands on the inside of his thighs and kissing around his spent cock. It takes a few breaths before Nicolò shows any sign of life again, and when he does, he blindly grasps at Yusuf's shoulder, tugging him up.

He goes, and Nicolò holds the back of his neck and pulls him down for a kiss. It's all tongue and biting and open mouths, and Yusuf feels himself twitch again. Then, Nicolò spreads his legs for him and pulls at his hips, and it's an invitation if he's ever seen one, but they can't do that, not now. He knows it's not as simple as it is with women. Instead, Yusuf rolls over to the side, doesn't break their kiss, and blindly feels for Nicolò's hand. He guides it to his cock and then moans when he feels the fingers touch his sensitive skin.

Through his haze, Nicolò takes the hint and promptly closes his hand into a fist around him. His strokes are uncoordinated and messy, but he's eager and the pressure is just right, and Yusuf is so hard from having had him in his mouth and he's already so close-

He moans, and digs his nails into Nicolò's arm, steadying him so he can fuck his orgasm into his fist. His vision whites out for a moment as he bites his moan into Nicolò's lips, a cry ripping its way from his throat as he comes. He continues moving even when there's nothing else left in him because it feels so good and he wants to ride the intensity of it forever.

He collapses half on top of Nicolò, his eyes half-lidded and his body a dead weight. A hand nudges him into a different position and he goes. When lips are pressed against his, he kisses them back.

They don't bother cleaning up. They wipe their hands on the sheets and they lie on top of each other, sweaty and in disarray. In a few minutes, the friction of their thighs against their cocks will start to nudge them back awake and they will start the cycle anew.

When the night is done and the sun comes up, they've lost count of the orgasms between them. They roll away from the damp, messy mattress and into the pristine, untouched one. A mess of limbs and heartbeats, they fall asleep in each other's arms, and only awaken when their growling stomachs demand it.

\--

Yusuf had almost expected to wake up in the 12th century. A cycle complete, a new leaf, isn't that why they're here? Some deep, meaningful higher power teaching them – him – a lesson?

Honestly, he just wishes he could have avoided the exact moment he's living through right now. Namely, taking their soiled sheets downstairs to the laundry, while sporting the worst case of bed head he's ever had.

"If you say a single word, I will throw this on you," he tells Joe when he sees him and his stupid, grinning face.

It doesn't help that they woke up near lunch time and that Nicolò looks about as debauched as he does, if not more.

"I feel like we should be giving them the talk," he hears Joe say to Nicky, and it's in Arabic because Joe's an asshole. Yusuf doesn't hear Nicky's reply.

Later, when he returns to the room to put fresh sheets back onto the second mattress, he finds a little bottle there. Its label is written in the modern script that neither Yusuf nor Nicolò can read, so he has no idea what it is. He opens the cap and smells the contents – it doesn’t have any scent that he can tell. He squeezes some of it onto his hand; it's thinner than a paste but not as liquid as water. When he spreads it with his fingers, it just feels slimy. Frowning, he rubs it into his palms, like he would soap, but it doesn’t absorb at all. It just sits on his skin and turns his hand into a slippery-

"Ah."

Dinner is painfully awkward. Nicolò stares down at his own plate and eats mechanically without saying a word. If eating can be done smugly, Joe's having a decent go at it, and Yusuf is certain that the only reason he's not saying anything is that Nicky asked him – multiple times – not to. Nicky, for his part, opens his mouth a couple of times to start a conversation, but closes it again and just eats in silence.

And Yusuf, well. Yusuf's thinking of the little bottle upstairs with the clear substance inside. He has to shift in his chair a couple of times from discomfort.

When dinner comes to an end, Nicky clears his throat and dabs a napkin over his mouth. "We'll wash up," he says.

Yusuf and Nicolò look at each other and make a show of not going upstairs at the same time.

It doesn't matter.

As soon as the door closes behind them, they're on each other.

And it's a repeat of last night but it's easier because their hands slide together, and their cocks slide together, and closed thighs become something they can fuck into. They don't push it into dawn this time, though. It starts to feel less urgent because they know they can do this again every day, forever, if they want to.

Forever.

Yusuf thinks about it as Nicolò sleeps on his chest and he runs his fingers through Nicolò's hair.

Forever.

\--

The anniversary of their landing in the 21st century arrives. It's the first time that Nicky and Joe knock on their door in the morning.

Yusuf grabs a shirt from the floor, puts it on, and hands another one to Nicolò. The sheets cover the rest of them, and he clears the sleep from his throat.

"Still here!" he tells the closed door. It's an attempt at humor, but it falls short.

"Can we come in?" Nicky asks.

Yusuf knows enough of his voice to know he's anxious.

"Yeah, we're awake."

They open the door only enough that they can see the two of them. The relief on their faces tugs at Yusuf's chest and he thinks, yeah, I'll miss them, too.

Joe taps his fingers against the door frame. "We just wanted to check in,"

"It's alright. We'll come downstairs, now. Have an early breakfast," Nicolò says, but he's looking at Yusuf for confirmation.

Yusuf nods and they're left alone to get dressed.

It's five am, and it hits Yusuf how much they must have been worried about them. He wonders if they had gotten any sleep at all.

The day has a film of grey set over it. They play cards and they swim in the pool, and they don't do lessons. They talk and laugh and Joe and Yusuf wrestle each other in the water, and it feels like any normal day, but it _isn't_.

When Yusuf and Nicky cook, Joe and Nicolò stay in the kitchen with them. They've already shared a bottle of wine by the time they sit down for dinner.

Yusuf and Nicolò don't disappear upstairs afterward as they had been doing for the past week. They stay in the living room with Nicky and Joe and play guessing games that dissolve into a mess of Arabic and Ligurian. Yusuf understands now, how Joe and Nicky speak a jumble of a dialect that no one else can parse.

They get drunker and drunker as the night goes on. And as midnight approaches, Nicky is already starting to drift off.

"Come, my heart. Let me take you to bed," Joe says when Nicky falls asleep on his shoulder a second time.

Nicky opens his eyes, squinting at the three of them. "What time is it?"

"Almost midnight."

He hums. "We should clean up."

"We'll do it, it's ok," Nicolò offers.

He gets up from where he was sitting on the floor to Yusuf's left and picks up a couple of the empty wine bottles strewn across the coffee table. He holds them against his chest and extends his hand out. "Yusuf, can you hand me the-"

And he doesn't finish the sentence. Because the bottles fall to the floor and smash against the tile.

Nicky jumps awake at the noise, his eyes going wide. And Joe rises to his feet in an instant.

Because Nicolò is gone.

The space he had occupied a second ago is empty and Nicolò is _gone_.

Yusuf looks down at himself, at his hands and he can feel the panic rising to his throat.

"No. No, no, no, no." His breath gets choked and he pats himself down because he doesn’t know if he's real or not.

He stares at the empty space again because it _can't_ be empty. It can't be empty because Nicolò was just there and now he's not, but Yusuf is still here, and this can't be happening.

"Nicolò!! NICOLÒ!!!" he yells and he's on his knees and he doesn't care that there's broken glass on the floor. He feels at the space beneath his palms because surely there's a doorway to another world. Surely, the ground will open up and swallow him.

"Yusuf-"

"No!! No! He's- He's-"

"Yusuf, the glass-"

"Don't fucking touch me!"

There must be some clue. They entered this world together. They entered immortality together and they traveled through time together. There must be-

He's running upstairs because that's where Nicolò's clothes are - the ones from the 12th century. Surely, he couldn't return without them. Surely, if they were there, then so was he.

He throws the door open and pulls the drawer from the dresser with so much force that it rips off and falls onto the floor. He can hear footsteps behind him, but he ignores them and the voices. He throws every piece of clothing aside because Nicolò's are nowhere to be seen, and that's not right- that's not possible-

He goes for the drawer where he keeps his things, and his red tunic is still there, folded and untouched because he hasn’t worn it in a year. But Nicolò hadn't worn his either, so his had to be here too. It _had_ to.

He pulls his tunic out and feels something fall on his feet. Booker's letter.

In a rage, he bends down and almost shreds the things to pieces, but something in his gut pulls at him not to. It's a strange feeling in his stomach, like his torso is slowly sinking into mud. His eyes snap open and he looks up to see Joe and Nicky staring at him, wide-eyed and terrified on his behalf.

He starts laughing, or crying, he can't tell. Because he knows exactly what this feeling in his stomach is. He has enough time to look at them, and through a teary smile say, "Thank you."

And then he's gone.

\--

When he lands home – _home –_ it is to find a puffy-eyed Nicolò, wearing 21st century clothes and pacing around their lodgings while pulling at his hair.

Upon hearing him, Nicolò turns around sharply and makes a guttural sound when he sees him.

They meet each other halfway, and Nicolò throws himself at him. His arms and legs both wrapping around him in a death grip. Yusuf is laughing, holding onto him with equal force, and kissing every part of him he can reach.

"I thought-" Nicolò says, but it comes out as a pained wail.

"I know. I know. I'm here," he says, rubbing Nicolò's back, even as his other hand is supporting most of his weight. "It's ok, I'm here."

When they pull apart, it's been minutes, and they're both still red-faced and tear-streaked, but it's easier to breathe now.

"I think Booker's letter didn't want to get left behind," Yusuf says, holding the envelope that had triggered his trip back home. Or, at least, that's what he thinks it did. It could be a coincidence, but Yusuf doesn’t believe in coincidences anymore.

Nicolò huffs, eyeing the letter as if it offended him, but he takes it from Yusuf's hand and sets it off to the side.

"Tell me you'll never leave my side again," he says, wiping the remaining tears from his eyes.

"Never," Yusuf promises. "Never."

And it's not easy. And it's a road of forgiveness strewn with painful memories. But Yusuf makes a promise, and Nicolò makes a promise. And thousands of years later, when they leave this earth, they do it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello friends! <3 Just wanted to add some notes in here!  
> First of all, you guys have flooded my inbox and I'm sobbing, because you are all so lovely and I wanna die.
> 
> Just wanted to explain some things I forgot to put in the notes originally:  
> -Year 494 is the year in the Islamic calendar. It is the same as our year 1101  
> -Harisa is a medieval food. It's also called Harees, and other names. It is unrelated to the modern food also called Harisa (which is a condiment). It's kinda like a wheat porridge with meats, and apparently everyone loved it.  
> -Yes. I can imagine the porn version of this fic. I have a tumblr post about it (:  
> -........if you wanna write it.......................................just tag me.............................. (jokes aside, please write it lmao).  
> -Also, I don't own this plot idea, please write all the time travel AUs that your heart desires. If anything, I will read all of them lol.


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a bonus little epilogue <3

The snow wasn't settling on the ground properly, this year. Joey can imagine Nick grumbling about global warming, but mortals were being dutiful with green pacts, these days.

"Hayati, watching the roads won't make them arrive any faster," Joey says, and Nick startles, turning around to look at him.

Nick sighs. "I know, I just- the roads are icy. I-"

"Worry."

"Yes."

"Come, Sevrin wants to know why Uncle Nick isn't helping him steal cookies from the top of the fridge."

Nick huffs out a laugh. "Don't let Booker hear you say that."

"Honestly, I think Booker is secretly waiting for him to pass out in a sugar coma."

"Well, he should think about that next time his son asks him to babysit."

Joey snorts.

The living room is decked out in holiday decorations. Two massive Christmas trees sit by the window, piled with presents underneath. Sevrin, Booker's grandson, is valiantly trying to steal gifts away but Nile will swoop in at the last minute and throw him up in the air as admonishment. It just makes him giggle and scream in joy. Joey thinks that's why he's stealing presents, to begin with.

"Sevrin! If you don't try to steal any more gifts, I'll let you have a sip of grandma's wine," Annalise says. She's curled up on the couch, a blanket on her lap, and an armful of Booker.

"See, this is why you're my favorite Mrs. Le Livre," Nile tells her, pouring some wine for herself.

"Nile, That's morbid." Nick admonishes. He's fetching some grape juice and Joey reckons he's going to bribe Sevrin into compliance.

"Fifth time's the charm!" Annalise says, grinning.

Booker chuckles and kisses her hand. "I don't know. Definitely top three, though."

She smacks him on the shoulder.

The doorbell chimes and Joey shakes his head, smiling. He opens the door to a grinning Quynh and a miserable-looking Andy.

"Boss!" He grins. He already knows how much she hates Canadian weather.

"I'm not visiting you again until you move back to the tropics," she says, but dutifully pulls him into a bear hug.

Nick comes up behind him and pulls her into a hug right after.

"I was getting worried," he says. It's low enough that Joey thinks he wasn't meant to hear.

Andy smiles at him, her eyes crinkling with fondness. "I haven't died in three hundred years, Nick. It's not some icy road that's gonna take me out."

"Is she behaving?" Nick asks Quynh, instead.

"As well as she ever does. I'm this close to building her a robot she can operate into missions with us." She snorts, but Joey wonders if that's why she's been so interested in robotics for the past century.

"Stop it, all of you. No shop talk during the holidays," Andy says, and then she heads over to the living room.

"Who's this one, then?" Quynh asks when they reach the couch. "Booker, did you pop another one out while we were away?"

"Nope, just the seventeen for me. Besides, wife says the factory closed for business 25 years ago."

"Two and done, dear, thank you. You're welcome to carry them yourself if you want more."

Nile snorts. "Well, that's an image."

"Besides," Annalise sighs, "menopause. It comes for us all." She looks from Andy to Quynh to Nile, and then cocks her head to the side. "Well, some of us, anyway." They laugh.

Dinner is a loud, messy affair. They break no less than two glasses, a plate and somehow, a fork. Joey thinks Booker really might poke someone's eye out one of these days.

It warms his heart to see his family gather around the table like this. They only see each other a few times a year for things like this, what with Booker living with his mortal families for the longest part of most centuries, and Andy and Quynh treasuring whatever time Andy still has left with them. Nile, at her three hundred years, is still as wild and free as ever, going off the grid for months on end on her expeditions around the globe.

He gets up to fetch their third type of desert from the kitchen – a decadent chocolate mousse pie that Booker's third wife, Camilla, had taught him to make some two hundred years ago.

What he finds in the kitchen is Nick standing by the oven, staring at the tray of Sfogliatelle that their family had reduced to crumbs.

"Amore?"

His voice snaps Nick out of whatever train of thought he'd been lost in, and he looks up.

"Tutto bene?" Joey asks, placing a hand on the back of Nick's neck.

"I wish they-" Nick starts, but his voice catches.

"My heart, what's wrong?"

Nick closes his eyes and places his hand over Joey's arm. "I wish they'd been here to see it."

Oh.

Joey's heart clenches and he sighs, closing his eyes and letting his forehead fall against Nick's.

"This is everything they would have wanted," Nick continues. "Booker's happy, here. We never lost Quynh. We haven’t even lost Andy. I just- I wish I could tell them that we've made it. That they made a difference."

Joey's eyes are stinging, but he smiles nonetheless. "I think they know. And they got their Quynh back, didn't they? There's no reason to think their Andy is different from ours, they'll find out that if she isn't killed, she won't age. She won't die on them. She'll help their Quynh get better. Joe and Nicky will help Booker get past his grief. They're probably as happy as we are now, hayati."

Nick sniffles. "Do you think so?"

"I do. I really do."

Nick closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. "It was just- it was easier for us. Everything. It's not fair."

Joey remembers the words Joe had said to him in the kitchen all those centuries ago, _I'm jealous of you_. He hadn't understood the depth of them, then.

"No, it's not. And I thank them every day for what they did for us." He puts his hands on Nick's face and rests his head against his. "And that's how we honor them. We go out there, and we have dinner with our family. And we live. And we're happy. Because that's what they wanted for us."

Nick nods against him and they share a soft, whisper of a kiss.

"Come on, Annalise is dying to try our legendary pie."

And that night, after everyone gets into their cars and heads back home, after Nick and Joey go to bed and all the Christmas lights are out, they get a phone call.

For a moment, Joey has the fantasy that he'll hear Nicky or Joe's voice on the other side. He'd be dreaming of them, as he does every few years.

But it's Booker.

And it's one am, and the roads really _were_ icy. And Sevrin is fine, but Booker sounds like he's crying, and he says, "Annalise died in the car crash."

But the phone rattles and there are muffled noises, and when someone speaks again, it isn't Booker.

"Guess I won't be dreaming of you guys, huh?" Annalise says and Joey lets out a sob.

He shakes Nick vigorously, almost pushing him off the bed.

"I'm not gonna lie, I'm kind of mad you guys all died in your thirties, but ok," she's saying.

Nick blinks awake, and he looks like a grumpy cat. Joey stares at him and his heart is just about ready to burst.

"What's goin' on?" Nick mumbles, one eye still closed.

Joey kisses his husband soundly on the lips and thinks to himself for the millionth time since getting back to the 12th century, _thank you_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes. I gave Booker 5 wives. I couldn't stand him just pining away and wasting himself at the bottom of a bottle for centuries. I also can't bring myself to ship Book of Nile. So in this universe, he learned to accept that "just because something ends, doesn't mean it's not worth having." But then ofc I gave him an immortal wife, because I'm a fcking sap.
> 
> I could not imagine that Yusuf and Nicolo would ever be able to call themselves "Joe" and "Nicky", without thinking of Joe and Nicky. So they switched their nicknames around, when the time came. Although, it's year 2320, so who knows what they'd actually be called lol.
> 
> Also, no one dies or suffers forever in my fics. So I saved Quynh, and Andy will never die, because I said so lol.
> 
> Thanks for reading  
> I hope you all liked it! <3


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